quick communications question

this one is probably pretty easy, but i dont have a clue. How is it we can recieve signals and info from the mars rovers, and voyager wich is about 9 billion miles away. But, my cell phone,radio,satellite, and other such electronics regularly lose signal or dont work. Also if they can still receieve info from voyager, if anyone works in the computer development area, tell them to make me a wireless card with that distance : )


I looked on google a little, but didnt reaslly find anything to answer my question. Thanks in advance.

Re: the space stuff. Big honking antennas on the receive side.

Re: your Wifi. Itsy bitsy teeny weeny antennas on the receive side.

There's more to it, but in a nutshell antennas make a HUGE difference. If you use a 8 foot dish as an antenna on your wifi card, and another one on the receive side, you could have a link that is miles long (I think the record is 24 miles).

This is one case where size does matter.