SETI League EME (Moonbounce) Station

The W2ETI EME Beacon

On numerous occasions during the past four decades, several of the world's largest radio telescopes have been used to reflect interesting microwave signals off the Lunar surface, introducing hundreds of the world's amateur radio operators to the exotic world of EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) communications, or moonbounce. In the third month of the 21st Century, radio amateurs at the nonprofit, grassroots SETI League had an opportunity to return the favor, by providing astronomers at the Arecibo Observatory with a highly stable, precisely calibrated moonbounce signal with which to test their equipment. In the design, construction, and operation of their Lunar Reflective Calibration Beacon for Radio Astronomy and SETI, these radio hams have demonstrated that the difference between amateur and professional involves neither scientific rigor nor technological prowess, but rather the size of the paycheck.

Funded in part by a NASA Small Research Grant administered by the American Astronomical Society, with further financial support from the Central States VHF Society, The SETI League EME beacon operates continuously, whenever the Moon is above the horizon at the transmitter's Northern New Jersey location.

The W2ETI moonbounce beacon provides both amateur and professional radio astronomers worldwide with a constant and reliable calibration signal, on a frequency of 1296.000 MHz in the amateur radio 23 cm band. The links here provide operating and technical details of this unique facility.