Originally Posted by
Lorimer
Rory 166 refers us back to AT1's post no.7124, now on page 357, where, a telecoms engineer explains in striking detail how these satellites work and the accuracies involved.
This is dense stuff, but well written and I would like to add my thanks to AT1 for his work in putting that very helpful explanation together.
And @Ian W
It is the INMARSAT business to ensure that these thousands of aircraft transmissions are not mixed up. So the hypothesis that they 'tracked the wrong plane' is just not supportable.
Those who have laboured through thousands of posts this week will have heard the INMARSAT chap explaining in very clear terms that the nearest analogy is the SIM card in your mobile phone having a unique identity that carriers pick up. Similarly INMARSAT satellites pick up the unique IDs from aircraft, no confusion at all.