posted
I am interested to see what the general consensus is in this forum for the devices seen on the front of the secondary hull of the original Enterprise. We have a "dish" and behind that are several concentric copper "rings". Various diarams of the ship point to this area and identify it as either the Main Sensor or the Navigational Deflector. Is the dish the Sensor, and the rings the Deflector? Are they both the same device that does both?
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Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
From what I recall, the "dish" is the navigational deflector while the concentric rings behind it are the main sensor array. The Refit Enterprise has something similar in that the glowing dish has two series of rings that surround it. These are the navigational deflector and the main sensor array, respectively. I believe that this is mentioned in "The Making of Star Trek", but might be wrong, there. I'm a little brainfuzzed at the moment due to trying to adjust to moving shifts several times over the last two weeks and haven't been getting more than about 5 hours of sleep a day on average....
Anyhow, at the very least, this is the general concensus of most TOS Treknical fans I know who've done some research on the subject.
posted
What about the NX-01? They don't have deflector-technology AFAIR, do they? So the dish should be a sensor array.
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Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Yeah, I thought it was the otherway around as well: The dish is the sensor, and the rings are the deflector. I guess that impression is re-enforced by diagrams such as the FJ Tech Manual pointing to the dishes on the Scout, Destroyer and T-Tug and identifying it as the Main Sensor.
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Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Well, I'll admit I might be wrong, as I'm suffering from lack of sleep for the last several days. However, I'm pretty certain that the FJ plans - much as I love 'em! - got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time I mis-remembered something.
Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing....
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Jefferies (RIP) labels the dish as Sensors. And of course, it looks like a sensor of some kind. But this was all done before anyone had a clue about Star Trek's starships.
posted
OK Just found my notes and re-read them. I was wrong in my statement above, as I had it all backwards...
My bad. I've been something like 60 hours with only 9 hours of sleep, so ain't exactly thinking clearly. I've even seen things out of the cornor of my eye, so guess I'm starting to experience some hallucinations....
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Well, I know in the TNGTM the long range sensors are mounted behind the navigational deflector, probably so that the hardware of the sensors aren't in the way of the deflector's projected field and its affects (and this would seem to be true for all Starfleet ships of TNG era and after).
Could the same thing apply to earlier ship designs? It would seem like something that wouldn't change much with advancements in technology.
Plus, the long range sensor is not a single sensor, but a collection of a variety detectors. I'm not quite sure they can be fully represented, hardware wise, by a single dish.
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Registered: Apr 2001
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Before heading in to work, I found some other notes I'd made. Neither set of notes has a date on it, but this second set of notes agree w/what David Templar states above. I also sort of remember this being mentioned in a semi-official publication think it might be in the TNG:TM. I thumbed thru "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise" before heading in to work, but didn't find anything specific there - and wasn't thinking clearly enough to throw it in to my backpack while I was getting ready. I plan to re-read the introduction section, as I think it might contain the basic theory, as well as in the TNG:TM.
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
If it helps any, the two systems were originally separate. The main sensor was the dish, while the navigational deflectors were the rings and (especially) the three little boxlike things flanking the dish. Notice the Reliant, while lacking a sensor dish, still has the uprated version of those greeblies from the refit Enterprise incorporated into her design. Even the Excelsior has likely-looking candidates in those little greebled recesses on the dorsal. I think the systems didn't get merged until the Ambassador class.
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Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: The main sensor was the dish, while the navigational deflectors were the rings and (especially) the three little boxlike things flanking the dish
Actually, I think that's backwards, at least by what's on the original TMP blueprints from 1980. The prints label the dish as the navigational deflector, while those three units around the housing are marked as "Space-Energy Field Attraction Sensors."
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Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
The dish being the main navigational Sensor would make sense and the Reliant not having one would work with it not having the sensors of the more powerful Enterprise.
I think that the original plan was for the dish to be the deflector, but from day one, it LOOKED like a radar dish, so it was impossible to fight.
That's like the Torpedo Launcher in the nose of the Klingon cruiser. In TOS, it wss the deflector/sensor and by ST:TMP it was commonly accepted that it looked like a weapon, so it was used as the torpedo launcher.
Look at what they used that 'dish' for in ST:TNG. The TNG tech manual even specifically says that the navigational sensor is mounted directly behind the deflector.
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Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
If we go by looks rather than by text references, the typically blue "deflector glow" seems to come from the dish in the refit Constitution, from behind the dish in NX-01, and I've heard a rumor that the TOS model was suppose to have a light source for the concentric rings (and for the warp nacelle inner flanks, basically TMP style) even if this was never used/shown.
Treknology-wise, it sounds like a phenomenally bad idea to put *anything* in front of a deflector beam emitter. Putting something in front of your sensor apertures is also silly, of course - but at least it won't get that something blown to smithereens by superpowerful forcefields!
Then again, we know that shields can be projected some distance away from the emitter. Perhaps the deflector beam emitter also generates the beam well ahead of the dish area, allowing other equipment to be placed between the emitter and its beam.
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