Talk:transponder

Reallife Transponders

I don't see any link between real-life transponders and the Orbiter variety. There is certainly no indication docking HUD selection is remotely akin to a primary or secondary radar. --BadWolf 18:06, 2 April 2006 (MSD)

If you limit transponder to ATC, you are right, but spacecraft and launchers also use a similar system for aiding tracking (not only the telemetry stream, but also radar transponders). A transponder in reality is nothing else, but a transceiver, which responds to a defined query with a defined answer - for ATC with a sqawk code, for orbiter with vessel name and state vector information. There is no need for the transponder to be radar based or like the ATC we know from flight sims - thats all just special cases of a general transponder. --Urwumpe 18:25, 2 April 2006 (MSD)

A transponder responds to a defined query with a defined answer, yes. There is no suggestion this is how the one in Orbiter works -- it's a simple beacon -- like a 3D VOR-DME. VORs aren't transponders as they aren't interrogated (well ok, beyond the normal DME interrogation). The Orbiter transponders seem to behave more like this (and are frequency-based too). I don't believe spacecraft transponders work in any differt way to conventional aircraft secondary-radar transponders and these ain't like that. --82.43.128.200 20:54, 2 April 2006 (MSD)