Janet's Star Trek Voyager Site

SHIP U.S.S. VOYAGER:
COMMUNICATIONS

screenshots by Janet

 

PERSONAL COMMUNICATOR : Page 2

OPERATING THE PERSONAL COMMUNICATOR

Click the combadge shown left for a demo (pop-up window). Having sound enabled/turned up is preferable but not essential. Concept and code by me. Combadge image source: Encyclopaedia. Demo speed depends on the processing speed of individual computers and the individual loading on them.


Crewman McKenzie taps his combadge to report that a Nyrian has just materialised in engineering
[#66 Displaced]		 Operating the personal communicator while aboard a Starfleet vessel is a matter of preference and habit. To initiate a voice call, it is simply a matter of tapping the front of the badge to confirm to the STA that the message is meant to go out. This may seem redundant, as the intraship comm. system is constantly monitoring and routing voice transmissions, but it is a good practice to learn (this aspect was introduced into canon only in the book STTNG Tech which was published after complaints by fans about the inconsistency on [Star Trek: The Next Generation] of the Enterprise-D crew tapping or not tapping their combadges, so it is possible that this aspect of personal communicator use was introduced specifically to answer those complaints).

During away team operations, tapping the combadge is essential to preserving internal battery power. The tap activates a dermal sensor to relay a power up command to the STA. The range of the communicator is severely limited, mainly due to the small size of the STA emitter and power supply. In transmissions between two stand-alone communicators, clear voice signals will propagate only 500 kilometres. This is a tiny fraction of the 40,000 km required to contact an orbiting spacecraft, so it is the spacecraft that must become the active partner in order to receive the communicator's lower-power signals, and transmit correspondingly high-power signals to the communicator's receiver. The communicator is a line-of-sight device during away missions. Its planetside range may be improved if the magnetic field value is below 0.9 gauss, or mean geologic density is less than 5.56 g/cc. Various EM factors will affect voice and transporter lock. Most remedies to comm. interference will take place on the spacecraft side, as there are few user-adjustable controls within the communicator. In the event of loss of transporter lock, other ship sensors can be brought into play to locate crewmembers, though the process can take longer to complete.

 

LOCATING PERSONNEL VIA THEIR PERSONAL COMMUNICATOR

The shipboard computer can locate any individual member of USS Voyager's crew through their personal communicator and thereby immediately answer an enquiry as to their location.

[#24 Persistence Of Vision]
Neelix locates Janeway in order to remind her that she needs to talk to him about handling the Botha species as Voyager is approaching their space. He tells her as he meets her in the corridor: "Ah, Captain. The computer told me I'd find you on deck 11, section 4B, starboard side, and sure enough here you are."
[#99 Once Upon A Time]
Neelix asks the ship's computer to locate Naomi Wildman, is told that she is in her quarters, but discovers that, in order not to be found, by Neelix in particular, she has put her combadge on her Flotter doll to mislead him.
[#124 Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy]
In 2376 the Doctor uses it and learns that thereby that there is something wrong with his program as a result of adding the ability to daydream - he is stuck within one.
'Chakotay': "That was incredible. I just wanted to congratulate you. The Borg will have to think twice before attacking Voyager again. Nice work."
Doctor: "Computer, locate Commander Chakotay."
Computer: "Commander Chakotay is in his quarters."
click for audio clip from the episode

The ability to locate any individual is particularly important where a crewmember might be feared lost or injured. Once the person is located they can be contacted (if their personal communicator is operational and they are able to answer) and/or the ship's duty transporter officer can try to lock onto their personal communicator signal and transport them. Where the person is injured, it is likely that a site-to-site transport will be carried out, this being a procedure usually used in emergencies, in order to convey the injured party directly to sickbay. This of course assumes that the person wants to be found or transported or has their personal communicator on them. It is also a means by which to transport other personnel (or objects), by attaching a combadge to them.
Seven attaches a combadge to the corpse of Lt. John Mark Kelly, who was the pilot of the Ares IV command module and who was lost in October 2032 and found in 2376 by USS Voyager. Kelly is then buried in space with full honours.

[#36 Investigations]
In 2372, Paris goes under cover and successfully unmasks Crewman Michael Jonas as a traitor in league with the Kazon Nistrim and their ally the former Voyager officer Seska. From engineering Jonas tries to disable Voyager's weapons and block the transport back to the ship of Paris as Paris flees pursuit by the Kazon Nistrim. Neelix realises he is the traitor and starts to make a comms. signal but Jonas stuns him before he can finish it, then removed both Neelix's combadge and his own. Transporter room 2's operator beams only Jonas' combadge out of engineering, not the man himself.
click for audio clip from the episode
Jonas thereby evades capture, but shortly afterwards is killed when he accidentally falls into a plasma stream during a struggle with Neelix. [#36 Investigations]
[#60 Darkling]
In 2373 the Doctor adds the personalities of certain famous historical figures into his program to try and enhance his personality, but he receives not just the great and noble aspects of these people but the dark aspects of their characters. The result is an evil Darkling Doctor who despises the "servility" of the original Doctor and who tries to escape USS Voyager. He imprisons Torres in sickbay using injurious medication and removes her combadge so that she cannot signal for help. He takes Kes hostage and removes her combadge too.
[#170 Renaissance Man]
In late 2377 the Doctor is coerced into stealing USS Voyager's warp core for two renegade Hierarchy aliens. He achieves this by masquerading as certain members of the ship's crew in order to issue the necessary orders. Along the way he is nearly discovered, requiring him to sedate Chakotay and Kim. He removes their combadges and hides their bodies in the ship's morgue. As an incidental result, the Doctor acquires a collection of combadges. After the Doctor leaves Voyager, stolen warp core in tow, Tuvok has to institute a section-by-section search to find Chakotay and Kim.
click for Flash movie
In Voyager's morgue, the Doctor, masquerading as Janeway, presses a panel control to open a unit, unit opens and the body slab extends, presses controls on a PADD and beams Chakotay onto the slab, removes his combadge, presses the panel control so that the unit retracts and closes, then leaves.
(pop-up window)
[Season 7: Renaissance Man]
click for audio clip from the episode
verbal command to LCARS

When personnel are away from USS Voyager and in addition normal communications are not possible, the personal communicator can act as a homing beacon if necessary. Again, this is an extremely useful feature where crew are feared lost, injured or even taken captive by hostile forces.

Kim explains: "The combadge is designed to self-activate when the casing is destroyed, to help searchers locate victims." click for audio clip from the episode[#4 Time and Again]
Janeway, with the back of her combadge off, configures the combadge to set up a homing signal. [#57 Coda]
The previous page includes a diagram of the interior of a combadge (source: The Starfleet Survival Guide. See it again.

 

USER ID SECURITY

For security purposes, the Starfleet personal communicator is a personalised device that can be programmed to respond to the individual crewmember's bioelectrical field and temperature profiles using the built-in dermal sensor. If an attempt is made to operate an appropriately programmed device by another crewmember without security override authority, the communicator will fail to activate. During benign situations, security codes are changed every five days. During emergency situations, or when Away Team members are involved in planetside operations, codes are changed on a random schedule at least once every twenty-four hours. This can be especially important if it is not known whether the Away Team will encounter threat forces, and the period of twenty-four hours is probably connected with Starfleet regulation 476-9 which states that "All away teams must report to the bridge at least once every 24 hours." [#99 Once Upon a Time]