Microcosms: Patrick Leigh Fermor’s “Mani”

Man is a universe in little
—Democritus

Visualize a map of Greece, a fore-arm and paw stubbed into the Mediterranean from the rump of Eastern Europe. The paw ends in three claws stretching towards Crete. The Mani – subject of my current obsession, Patrick Leigh Fermor’s “Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese” (1958) – is the middle and narrowest of the three, just 15 km wide and 50 km long.

Die boek is gebaseer op Leigh Fermor se omswerwinge in Griekeland na die Tweede Wêreldoorlog met sy reisgenoot en later vrou, Joan. My pa, vyf jaar jonger as Leigh Fermor, moes omtrent dieselfde tyd daar gewees het.

Resulting field strength rules: New reasons for an old idea

Current transmit power limits don’t provide sufficient constraints on interference, particularly when applied to modern systems (such as in the millimeter-wave bands) that deliver signal levels that change dramatically and rapidly from moment to moment, and place to place. I believe that limits on resulting field strength, rather than transmitted power, will be necessary in new allocations, particularly in the millimeter-wave bands.

Satellite constellation license auctions

Broadband satellite constellations in non-geostationary orbits (NGSO) will share frequency bands. They will interfere with each other from time to time. How should such conflicts be resolved? FCC rules encourage constellations to coordinate their operations, treating the shared NGSO bands as something like an FCC-supervised commons. However, spectrum regulators have increasingly used auctions to assign radio operating rights (cf. cellular licenses), and largely left it to the market to solve coordination problems. Could spectrum auctions be used for NGSO operation?