Continuing on our space theme which started with the QSO from St Scholastica to the ISS. We delved a little more deeply into some of the underlying communications technology that supported the Apollo mission. And, indeed the whole of the space program from the very early days.
These videos below are relatively recent and describe some fantastic conservation technology work by a team in California. They were given physical access to the Unified S Band transponders and amplifiers used in the Apollo Command Module (CSM).
The videos describe the variety of constant duty links that ran between earth and the spacecraft to allow accurate distance calculation, as well as voice comms, telemetry and even colour TV pictures.
But the finest moment is probably the forethought and engineering that allowed voice communication as well as data transmission to continue during the rescue of the crippled Apollo 13 mission.