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For the fifth year in a row, SETI League executive director H. Paul Shuch makes his pilgrimage to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank WV, for the annual meeting of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA). "It's a trip I have come to look forward to every year," Shuch alliterates, "not just seeking some superior science, but also for fine fellowship." SETI League photo

Since last year's SARA meeting, progress on construction of the 100 meter Green Bank Telescope is evident even when viewed from afar... SETI League photo

...but even more so from closer up. Although the project has slipped nearly three years behind its original schedule, this most ambitious radio telescope project ever promises to produce an unparalleled research instrument. SETI League photo

Last year SETI League member Don Cline acquired a surplus government satellite communications facility nestled in the mountains of North Carolina. He has now established a non-profit educational organization, the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI), and is building a world-class radio astronomy observatory. SETI League photo

Charles Osborne, WD4MBK, was a key participant in restoration of the Woodbury antenna as a radio astronomy facility for Georgia Tech. As Chief Engineer of PARI, he is now heading up restoration of the two Pisgah 26 meter dishes. SETI League photo

Ed Cole, SETI League regional coordinator for Alaska, has been involved in VHF propagation studies using artificial aurora. Here he shares the results of recent amateur propagation tests involving the HAARP atmospheric heating experiment. SETI League photo

SETI League regional coordinator R.J. Fear, a key software architect on the RAOOS project, describes and demonstrates the next generation of radio astronomy signal collection and analysis software at the 1999 SARA meeting. SETI League photo

Upon completion of the GBT, the 140 foot radio telescope pictured here will be retired from active service. The SETI community hopes to gain more time on this instrument when it is no longer needed for astrophysical observations. SETI League photo

Now into its fifth decade of life, the 85 foot Howard Tatel telescope still scans the heavens. SETI League photo

A closer view of the Tatel telescope, which Frank Drake used to conduct the very first SETI search in 1960. SETI League photo

In this traditional group photo, 33 of the 40 attending SARA members gather in front of the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope (growing every year!) to document its, and their, progress. At the 1999 SARA conference more than a dozen participants were also SETI League members. SETI League photo

The famous Drake Equation, which purports to estimate the number of communicative civilizations in the Galaxy, was actually the agenda for the world's first SETI meeting in 1961. This plaque now graces the very wall of the room at NRAO Green Bank, WV which once held the blackboard on which the equation was first written. SETI League photo