Liberty OTS Tital Wave Golf Ball?

[stevendom57 49]

I was just looking at the Friday pictures here on RCBlog and there is a picture of the Tidal Wave on Liberty OTS with a big golf ball looking structure next to it. What is that? 

Steven

[tiny260 1,604]

Satellite dish, is what I think we have been told by the nautical engineering types on this board.

Pinging @twangster , @monorailmedic

[jce2 242]

Yea, on any ship where ever you see a golf ball you can pretty much assume there is some form of satellite dish inside.  The actual golf ball simply serves as a weather protection.  You will see these things on a lot of military bases and elsewhere (there are two right behind my office)

 

[stevendom57 49]

Thanks. 

[twangster 22,388]

Yep.  The extra paint to make it look like a golf ball is just cosmetic.  Inside is a satellite dish on a mechanism that allows the dish to move freely and track a particular satellite as the ship moves in 3 dimensional space on the surface of the ocean.  

I used to have a similar 'tracking' dish on my motorhome so the kids could watch cartoons over satellite TV as we drove down the interstate.  My dish cost a heck of lot less than these ship tracking antennas.  

[JLMoran 5,974]

Just now, twangster said:

The extra paint to make it look like a golf ball is just cosmetic.

Interesting. I was wondering if it was painted to look like a golf ball for safety / awareness reasons, like to make sure any approaching med-evac helicopters have a clear sense of where the things are located / sized as they approach, instead of just seeing a plain white disc with no clear contours.

[WAAAYTOOO 9,855]

Probably either a radar or a comm terminal.  The radome is just a cover to protect the equipment inside from the "elements".  Been inside many a radome in my career.

[coneyraven 1,794]

See, now I would've thought it was a golf ball because that's where the mini-golf once was ..... they just never painted over the golf ball image.