# UV radio



## caters (Dec 21, 2015)

In the 5th chapter of my story called Life on Kepler Bb, Alma wants to discover her superpowers besides x ray vision and micro vision. Robin builds a pair of radios so that they can talk to each other over long distances.

The radio works like this:

A tiny microphone picks up the sound waves and converts them into electricity. That electricity then gets converted in UV light via a signal transducer. UV light then travels through everything it can including glass until it reaches the signal receiver on the other radio. The signal receiver converts light back into electricity and last but not least the electricity reaches the speaker and gets converted into sound.

The humanoids in my story(at least the species I am talking about since there may be other species in my story) are immune to UV light and can't see it. They can still get sunburnt(Or should I say starburnt since the star that Kepler Bb is orbiting around is not our sun? But then again the definition of sun is a star or group of stars that has at least 1 planet orbiting around it), just not from UV light.

But how efficient would this UV signal be over a long distance? High energy photons tend to loose energy much faster than low energy photons so UV would lose energy faster than IR or even visible light would. Loosing energy could mean loosing data after x distance units(I say distance units because it might be a unit that isn't used here on earth for distance). Loosing data would also mean loosing some letters or words if it is converted into sound or worse, jumbled up code. Also the UV light can go through more things than visible light or IR but not everything. It can't go through bone so unless Alma is holding the radio right the signal will be blocked by her bones.


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## CupofJoe (Dec 22, 2015)

It's a nice idea but I'm really not sure that it is practical.
You might want to look at this Wiki link on Free-Space optical communications...
And I think the harmful effects [on/for humans] would be a real problem.


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## kennyc (Dec 22, 2015)

caters said:


> In the 5th chapter of my story called Life on Kepler Bb, Alma wants to discover her superpowers besides x ray vision and micro vision. Robin builds a pair of radios so that they can talk to each other over long distances.
> 
> The radio works like this:
> 
> ..... UV light then travels through everything it can including glass until it reaches the signal receiver on the other radio. ....



Not working for me an electrical engineer and long-time SF reader.


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## TheKillerBs (Dec 22, 2015)

First of all, UV is only slightly more energetic than visible light and therefore, can only go through slightly more things than visible light. It cannot penetrate skin, for example, although it does burn if there is enough exposure.

As for how good the signal would be over long distances... Short answer is not at all. The atmosphere would quickly jumble the signal and turn whatever information was being transmitted into gibberish.


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## caters (Dec 22, 2015)

But, like I said these humanoids are immune to UV light so they won't get sunburn or skin cancer from it. This means that they can use UV light for lots of things without getting burnt.

Plus UVA, UVB, and UVC can each go through different things. Some glass blocks UVB, some blocks UVA, some blocks both, but I don't know of any kind of glass that blocks UVC. So they would be using UVC which has unknown effects on humans(mainly because there is so little UVC in our atmosphere and no humans have been put in sunlight, UVC light, and complete darkness where UVC is the experimental, Sunlight is the positive control, and complete darkness is the negative control to see if it effects humans and what effects it has.

Plus since this is fiction I can have them use some frequency other than radio waves. I could even have them use visible light for communication if I wanted to. I just thought of using UV instead since these humanoids are immune to UV light and can't see it.


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## kennyc (Dec 22, 2015)

Well you can do whatever you want, but as I said, it wouldn't work for me. I might go along with quantum entanglement radio or something like that or even something like an Ansible but when you specifically say UV light communication I know (and most who know a bit of science) know that it won't work like you say and it has the potential to throw the reader out of the story.


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## ascanius (Dec 22, 2015)

Umm....  I agree with everyone else.  If this is a planet I really don't get why a better means of communication is used, hell radio is better suited to the task.

However depending on a lot of factors it would theoretically be possible to calculate the energy loss of high energy photons across X distance to a fairly accurate degree, if the vector of both transponder and receiver are known to a accurate value.  It's one way we calculate the distance between the sun and the vast majority of celestial bodies.  The key difference is the level of accuracy.  What you would require is something down to the micrometer or even less.


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## Humabout (Jan 3, 2016)

My first and probably biggest issue with UV in place of radio waves is that UV would take more energy to produce in power ranges needed for long-range transmission. Secondly, higher energy EM doesn't automatically have greater penetration than lower-frequency light. In fact, it's been found that lower-energy EM seems to better penetrate solid structures until you reach x-ray frequencies (which would be radioactive).


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## kennyc (Jan 3, 2016)

Humabout said:


> My first and probably biggest issue with UV in place of radio waves is that UV would take more energy to produce in power ranges needed for long-range transmission. Secondly, higher energy EM doesn't automatically have greater penetration than lower-frequency light. In fact, it's been found that lower-energy EM seems to better penetrate solid structures until you reach x-ray frequencies (which would be radioactive).



Yeah, I prefer ansible communication myself. particularly in fantasy.


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## psychotick (Jan 4, 2016)

Hi,

Like the others, I simply can't see the point. It might work over short distances, but when you go outside and a van or a hill's in the way? It's literally going to be line of sight communication. So what's wrong with a simple radio?

Cheers, Greg.


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## Vaporo (Jan 4, 2016)

Why UV? Why not just visible light? Or, even better, regular radio waves? Ultraviolet light doesn't penetrate through much more stuff than visible light, and things like radio waves can already travel through walls. I suppose you could use some kind of focused laser communication, which would be excellent for extremely long distance communication (as in, distance between planets), but then you need a line of sight to your receiver. An excellent method for spaceships to communicate, not so good for planetside communication. UV light is just impractical for what you seem to want. 

I suppose, if your goal is to stay of detectable radio frequencies, it could work if you have a continuous line of sight to your receiver. But so could running a radio signal through some kind of encryption system.

Also, UV light isn't really that harmful to us either. It's only the extreme quantities coming from the sun (or a tanning bed) that can burn us. I've never heard of people getting burnt by a blacklight.


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## caters (Jan 6, 2016)

The point is to have something different than normal in my story. This is why I have things like Viral TB, UV radio, Mainly underground civilization, and in the 11th chapter Earthquakes forming Volcanoes.


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## Vaporo (Jan 6, 2016)

caters said:


> The point is to have something different than normal in my story. This is why I have things like Viral TB, UV radio, Mainly underground civilization, and in the 11th chapter Earthquakes forming Volcanoes.



Well, it doesn't sound like you're writing hard sci-fi, so you can probably just technobabble-handwave away the exact details of its operation.

Something like:
"The sending device generates I-particles, which are paired with I-particles in the receiver. When the I-particles in the receiver detect the generation of the I-particles in the sender, they excite nearby electrons via the Forrest Gump process and generate electric current, thus allowing us to transmit messages."

Or maybe not even that. Just say "yeah, it uses X process to transmit signals, so it won't be detectable to regular radio receivers."

But I'd just say use regular radio. Anyone who knows anything about how light and radio work will immediately ask "Why not just use regular radio? It would be so much better in this situation." Or, just as bad or worse, "That is not how UV light works. The author doesn't actually know what they're talking about." Always try to know exactly what you're talking about when you use real life science. It will break immersion if you don't.


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## Russ (Jan 6, 2016)

caters said:


> The point is to have something different than normal in my story. This is why I have things like Viral TB, UV radio, Mainly underground civilization, and in the 11th chapter Earthquakes forming Volcanoes.



If that is the only reason you are going this route (and it is not a good reason) you are better off going with something that sounds more exotic that educated readers won't immediately balk at as Vaporo suggests.  In the older SF lasers did all sorts of interesting things.  Nowadays if you take the same approach people will say "laser's can't do that" and your readers will lose respect for you and interest in your work.


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