Antenna power consumption

[RizzoTheRat]

I've always used RemoteTech in the past, but am giving the standard CommNet a go for the first time this game.

However I can't quite figure out power consumption of antennae.

If I take the HG-5 for example, it says it requires 51.4 charge/sec when transmitting.  So presumably that means if I transmit a 50Mit science report with it's bandwidth of 5.7 Mits/s, it will take 8.8 seconds at 51.4 charge per second, so about 451 charge.

But what about the rest of the time?  I rarely send science reports back, but do send unmanned craft that rely on the commnet for control, and I use kOS so transfer some of it's files around, which depend on connectivity but  I doubt has a Mit size.  so how much power does a relay use when it's just rebroadcasting a control signal?

[Leganeski]

7 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

So presumably that means if I transmit a 50Mit science report with it's bandwidth of 5.7 Mits/s, it will take 8.8 seconds at 51.4 charge per second, so about 451 charge

This is correct. However, the data is not transmitted continuously but rather in packets of (in the case of the HG-55) 2 Mits every 0.35 seconds, and each packet consumes 18 EC all at once. This doesn't matter much unless your total battery capacity is less than 18 EC, in which case you won't be able to transmit any packets even if you are generating the full 51.4 EC/s.

 

7 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

how much power does a relay use when it's just rebroadcasting a control signal?

None, as far as I can tell. I've launched quite a few relay satellites with powerful dishes and less than 0.1 EC/s of net electricity production, but I've never lost control due to one of them running out of charge.

 

[RizzoTheRat]

Thanks.  Much easier to work with than I thought then.