the DHD

S

spider

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From what I know, the DHD is a remote device. It's not physically connected to the gate in any way(though for a while I used to think there were wires or something under the ground). The DHD is to the Stargate what a remote controll is to a TV...a smaller unit that lets you call up any of a number of different "channels"...

...anyway, what I'm wondering is this. Since the DHD is a remote device, it must have a range to it. I'd like to know what the maximum distance from the gate a DHD can get and still dial up. The fact that the DHD is always situated just far enough away so as not to be consumed by the vortex suggests that the the range is low...what do you think?
 
Well, it is something certainly I had not considered....


But, there are many forms of energy it could be using to transmit the co-ordinates with, EM, neutrino, radiation etc. plus whatever the writers come up with

As for distance, it could be argued that tactics, common sense and practicality dictate the proximity of the DHD to the gate. Personally I would not want to be opening a large door without being close enough to have some control over who else was close enough to jump through! :nuts: As it is, at least one episode has been based on the effects of unwanted (admittedly invisible) aliens coming through the gate into the SGC. A similar problem comes from the problem of asynchronous dialling. I would not want to be dialling a gate I could not see closely, to determine whether the established wormhole was mine going out, or someone else's coming in - a fatal difference!

[NB. Do we ever hear what the Tok'ra, Asgard, Nox, Tollan or Goa'uld called the DHD prior to any adoption by them of Sam's term DHD?]
 
as far as i can tell, there's no way you could find out what the range of a dhd is without maybe actually taking a dhd and bringing it somewhere else.

another question about the dhd:
when you bring a stargate + dhd to another planet, supposedly you can dial in and out of that planet even if the stargate wasn't originally there. i got this idea from season 1's solitudes. now, d'you think you can automatically use the dhd, or do you have to somehow reprogram the point of origin?
think about that for a second.

~Shu Hunter
:upto: stargate fan{atic}
 
I know for sure it doesn't use cables because on Heliopolis, when the D.H.D. fell through the castle floor, there were no frayed cables. The range can't be that long because when the Germans and the Russians had the D.H.D. for the first gate, they no doubtedly tried pushing on the panels for the glyphs to see what would happen. The Gate in the SGC would show signs of it and we would find it by tracing the energy signal. There was no mention of this in the show. I know it didn't instead connect to the Anarctic Stargate because of the way it dialed in Solitudes. (Sam pushed the panel for glyph one and the chevron flickered then locked.) That indicated it hadn't been used in a long while.
 
Originally posted by MICSG7
I know for sure it doesn't use cables because on Heliopolis, when the D.H.D. fell through the castle floor, there were no frayed cables.
Click to expand...

also they launched the stargate into an alien sun in the season 4 finale.

The range can't be that long because when the Germans and the Russians had the D.H.D. for the first gate, they no doubtedly tried pushing on the panels for the glyphs to see what would happen.
Click to expand...

good point.

~Shu Hunter
:upto: stargate fan{atic}
 
Originally posted by shu_hunter
another question about the dhd:
when you bring a stargate + dhd to another planet, supposedly you can dial in and out of that planet even if the stargate wasn't originally there. i got this idea from season 1's solitudes. now, d'you think you can automatically use the dhd, or do you have to somehow reprogram the point of origin?
Click to expand...
Presumably the "point of origin" is always the same on a DHD, since it is generally going to be a planet symbol rather than an entire cluster of stars, (apart from careless writers/set-dressers/effects men) since presumably each cluster can hold several gates. Therefore the DHD could always have a "home" button, which can be used as soon as it has been installed.

Conversely, since a gate is generally installed by a powerful race, it doesn't much technology, or long, to devise a new glyph for the planet, and install it in the DHD! :eek:
 
but what about in season 2 premiere? Appophis and Klorel escaped through the stargate once they were close enough to earth when their ships were being torn apart.
I said somewhere else that maybe the stargate re-orients itself when it's near enough to a planet or something, and that would explain why sg1 wasn't able to dial out while going at hyperspeed.

~Shu Hunter
:upto: stargate fan{atic}
 
Sorry, yes, you are right - inconsistency/blooper alert: they could not have "used Earth as the point of origin" as Daniel said, because the symbol/glyph for Earth would not be ON the DHD in the ha'tak. Well, not per se, anyway.

Unless it has a generic "point of origin" button and Daniel was extemporising how it worked, rather than pedantically which button they pressed?
 
Generic point of origin? Nopers, unless they changed their minds after the movie. In the movie, Daniel found out what the Abydos origin was - it's like ours, but it has three dots above the pyramid instead of one.
 
What I meant was a generic position on the DHD for "point of origin"... which of course they didn't have for the movie...
 
Hmm yes I thought of that afterwards. A diff point of origin, but if you get it close to earth it'll redirect to dial from there. So I was thinking predefined points of origin for each world, and if you take a gate away from it's planet when you find another point it'll use that.

If that made no sense, lemme know :D
 
What this effectively means is that the whole gate system must have a certain ability to "know" where each gate is, and what the address/glyph "means".

And it must be adaptable, since we also know that new gates can be added (e.g. Tollana").
 
Of course, this presents yet another interesting possibility: any new alien race finding out about the gate system, and then somehow tapping into it with a new gate of their own and sending ultra-high energy beams/gravity through it...

[Though from a viewers point of view that would be dull, since it would be effectively a repeat.]
 
Originally posted by shu_hunter

also they launched the stargate into an alien sun in the season 4 finale.
Click to expand...

Also, in 48 Hours (formerly Teal'c Interrupted), {the one where Teal'c 's energy signature was stuck in the Earth gate after he failed to materialise}, the Russians handed over the DHD that originally came with the earth gate that Ra put on Earth (i.e. the one the SGC use, NOT the antartic one), the technicians/Sam did'nt have to "plug" the DHD into the Stargate via any cables...
 
The POOG is just a way of saying where the gate is dialling from, indicating the point of origin.
In the movie, they didn`t know this.
I think that you can move a Stargate anywhere and just dial out straight off as long as you know which glyph is the point of origin.
It doesnt change.
The appearance of the glyph on the dhd and the gate is of little concern as long as it is the poog. I think it is most likely in the same place on all dhds and Stargates, otherwise there`d be no way they could determine which one was the poog on an alien dhd.
So Apophis and Klorel could dial out from Earth`s orbit. They simply dial the address they want to go to and use the poog for that Stargate.

And it must be adaptable, since we also know that new gates can be added (e.g. Tollana").
Click to expand...

I think the Stargate network is not like a computer network as everyone seems to think. Everyone is speaking of it as if the gates are constantly connected to each other in some way and something cant enter the network unless it is recognised by the entire network.
I think the Stargate system is not so much a network as a whole, but more of a peer-to-peer connection. As long as the two gates are speaking the same language and can identify themselves as Stargates, then it makes no difference what the poog looks like on a dhd, who built it, whether the Stargate originated on the planet it is dialling from or anything like that.

I`m making a hopeless attmept at describing this. It all makes sense in my head but I`ve never had a way with words :) If anyone sees where I`m going with this and can describe it better, please feel free.
 
Thor, the explanation made loads of sense.

So, an individual gate must somehow be told where it is...

When a gate is dialled up, the specific gate does not "know" the planets surrounding it, since:
a) they can change due to drift
b) they can change if the gate is moved to somewhere else

So, how do they know if they have been dialled up?

They must have some sort of astronomical sensing equipment... so it can actively "find itself" within the universe. This would easily cope with re-location of any gate.

It also implies that during a dialling sequence, the starting gate must transmit the six glyphs to the WHOLE "network", and each gate calculates whether IT is that gate. (Theoretically of course, due to the position of each constellation, two addresses COULD relate to the same gate!) After that, the correct gate would be able to somehow respond, and then the wormhole become engaged.

This would also mean that any gate could be added at any point within a certain volume of glyph-addressable space.

And effectively the POOG is superfluous, a plot device from the first film, and retained for SG-1
 
I think it has a lag to the whole thing. We dial our side and the wormhole establishes and then the throat of it flows to the other end and creates the same wooosh effect. The chevrons probably aren't supposed to light until the point of origin locks also following a lag. The chevrons didn't light in the first AR episode when they were trying to dial to the beta site until the sequence was completed and if that was the case he may not have had his guards watch the gate in 'Secrets'. You may be right or it could also be a production glitch.
 
As I have said (perhaps in another thread) we also have the problems of TV viewing - when we cut from one end to the other of the gate, we don't know how close the cut is in time. Is it exactly the same, before, or after? In at least one episode the travellers are actually all en route before we even see the SGC start to receive the wormhole (and then decode the IDC, and then open the iris...)
 
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