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During the November 2003 ARRL International Moonbounce Contest, Noel Welstead VK4ETI, our volunteer regional coordinator for Eastern Australia, recorded these 1296 MHz EME signals with the recently commissioned five meter dish at the Boonah Science Centre. VK4ETI image

After the moonbounce contest had ended, Argonaut Peter Cheasley, VE2TPR, helped Noel to analyze the above signal with one of his music programs, to extract the Morse code callsigns buried in the noise. VE2TPR image

Longtime Canadian moonbounce amateur Cor Maas, VE7BBG, helped us to celebrate American Independence Day (4 July 2003) from Duncan, BC, by receiving The SETI League's W2ETI Beacon weakly on a 3.3 meter dish and 0.4 dB noise figure receiving system. Since Cor's system is typical of the average Project Argus station, his success should give encouragement to many of our members. His Spectran DSP settings are: AVG. 5 integration sampling rate 5512 resolution 2.7 Hz VE7BBG image

The SETI League's W2ETI Beacon, as received with a backyard 28 foot dish by EME Committee Chairman Allen Katz, K2UYH during our Arecibo moonbounce tests of April 2003. Al writes, "I did check out the beacon last night and it looked great. Frequency agreed with my new GPS standard." K2UYH image

Argonaut Tom Hutter (station FN20ut) received the W2ETI moonbounce beacon via the direct path during the October 2002 ARRL EME contest. In this waterfall display, one can see the one minute of unmodulated carrier, and almost read the two repetitions of the station callsign on slow-speed CW. Tom Hutter image

Argonaut Tom Hutter is receiving our 1296 MHz moonbounce beacon via the direct path (vertical line). The diagonal line in the same display would seem to correspond to a Doppler-shifted echo off the lunar surface, except for two minor details: the slope suggests a Doppler rate too high (corresponding to a relative velocity too great) for the Moon's relative motion, and at the time this image was taken, Hutter's antenna was pointed straight up, while the Moon was low on his eastern horizon! After thoroughly checking our moonbounce transmitter for spurious emissions, we concluded that Tom was seeing the beacon transmission bounced off an aircraft transiting the congested New York City area airspace. Though a shorter path than moonbounce, aircraft bounce appears to be yet another useful way to test your SETI system. Tom Hutter image

In March 2002, F5PL received our W2ETI 1296 MHz moonbounce beacon at Castlenaudry, in Southeast France. His station consists of a home-built 7 meter parabolic dish antenna on an automatized tracking system with 0.5 degree angular accuracy, F1EHN tracking software, a W2IMU feed at the focus of this dish, and an ATF 10136 GaAs FET preamp with a noise figure of about 0.8 dB. Our beacon is clearly visible as a steady carrier from 0000 UTC to 0001 UTC, followed by thirty seconds of Morse Code ID (the broken line). The slope of the trace clearly shows the EME signal's characteristic 25 Hz/minute Doppler signature. The continuous vertical trace seen at the right of the screen is a test signal from an HP synthesized signal generator locked to a rubidium clock (its slope shows the slight frequency drift of Bertrand's receiver). We figure the average Project Argus station will receive our EME echoes about six dB weaker -- faint, but still detectable. F5PL image

30 March 2002

The SETI League's Moonbounce Beacon achieved first light on 9 March 2001, providing calibration signals for the SETI Institute's Project Phoneix observing run. Conditions were less than ideal, with the Northeastern US experiencing blizzard conditions the week of the tests. This waterfall display shows the Doppler-shifted beacon, as received on the massive Arecibo radio telescope. The Project Phoenix multi-channel spectrum analyzer (MCSA) pulled our signal out from about 22 dB below the receiver's noise level, while our beacon illuminated the Moon at a power level of a mere ten watts. Future lunar echoes at a 200 watt power level will enable Project Argus participants to calibrate their small radio telescopes. Seth Shostak / SETI Institute

Two years after the above moonbounce signal was detected, we repeated the experiment with Arecibo, this time running 100 Watts of transmit power. The signal improvement was substantial. These screen dumps document reception of our CW ID keying, in both of Arecibo's orthogonal polarizations. Peter Backus / SETI Institute

EME (moonbounce) contests provide Project Argus participants with an opportunity to detect weak amateur microwave signals reflected off the lunar surface. This unusually strong 1296.015 MHz EME echo from the 30 foot dish of Jay Leibmann, K5JL, was received at Argus station FL11LH during the 30 October 1999 ARRL EME contest. Follow this link for more 1296 MHz EME signals. SETI League image

Gerry Cavan is also successful in receiving EME signals at 1296 MHz with his 10-foot dish. This SETIFox screen from October, 2000 shows several stations being received simultaneously. VE3EYR image

Another of Gerry Cavan's 1296 MHz moonbounce detections. Here several simultaneous signals are displayed using the FFTDSP shareware program. VE3EYR image

Third in a series of 1296 MHz EME signals received by Gerry Cavan. Note the different Doppler shifts in each signal detected, indicating that they emanated from different points on the Earth. VE3EYR image