(Click on thumbnail to download full picture)

Five of these 60-foot diameter parabolic antennas were built by Professor Ron Bracewell at Stanford University some forty years ago. Long since orphaned and slated for destruction, they became a cause celebre among amateur radio astronomers striving to rescue them. See this editorial by Dr. Bob Lash, who heads Friends of the Bracewell Observatory, a collaborative effort of The SETI League, the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers, the Society of Amateur Scientists, and others. Bob Lash photo

25 December 2004

Dick Daniels, W4PUJ, studies the Thermal Mass Model of the U.S. Naval Academy's PCSat, now on display in the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar Hazy Center, alongside of OSCAR 1 (see last week's Featured Photo). PCsat, developed by U.S. Naval Academy cadets and launched in 2001, allows amateur users to report and receive position information and messages from specially designed walkie-talkies nearly anywhere in the world. W3PK photo

18 December 2004

The James S. McDonnell Space Hangar opened Monday, Nov. 1 at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar Hazy Center near Dulles Airport,VA USA. In it is a display case containing the flight backup unit for OSCAR 1, the world's first non-Government communications satellite. Several SETI League members have been involved with radio amateur satellites in the 43 years since OSCAR 1 was launched. It's been many years since OSCAR 1 was on display at the Smithsonian; it had been in storage in recent years. W4PUJ photo

11 December 2004

David HM Spector, W2DHM, is making progress with his Project Argus station on Long Island, NY. Seen in this 72" rack are his Icom-R8500 0.1MHz-2GHz all mode receiver; Intel ISP-2150 rack-mount server running Linux with two 800MHz Pentium III coppermine processors, 512MB ECC DRAM, one 18GB 10,000rpm boot drive, two 36GB 10,000rpm disks as a striped RAID-0 set for data storage for the SETI data, Soundblaster-PCI sound card as DSP, and Hewlett-Packard Procurve-2425 100Mbit Ethernet switch (connects the ham-shack computers to the main house network). Outside, David has a 10' KTI TVRO Dish with RAS SETI Feed-horn and Choke-Ring, and a Comet 25MHz-2GHz discone used for general purpose reception with the IC-R8500. Click here for more pictures of David's station. W2DHM photo

4 December 2004

The Invitation to ETI unveiled its new website last week. This innovative SETI program headed by SETI League member Prof. Allen Tough seeks to establish dialog with technologically advanced extraterrestrial entities through its extensive internet presence. Emphasis at ieti.org is accessibility, since the site is targeted at an audience with whom we humans may have nothing biological in common. See this Press Release for further details. Invitation to ETI image

27 November 2004

Last month, during the International Astronautical Congress, nine members of the Invitation to ETI group (five of whom are SETI League members) met at a local Vancouver restaurant for lunch and lively discussion. SETI League photo

20 November 2004

S57UUU passes along the first fringes from the Sun, received on his SIDI interferometer. Marko writes, "In the last few months I have been working on a simple digital interferometer (SIDI for short) as a step towards the ERAC's ALLBIN project. It uses direct conversion receivers and single bit sampling. By truly digital I mean digital in the strong sense - that is sampling of individual channels and all further processing in the digital domain, as oposed to just A/D converting fringes produced with analog circuitry." Further SIDI information is available in Proceedings of SETICon04. S57UUU image

13 November 2004

This power combiner assembly for the VSA is constructed out of surplus components mostly acquired on eBay. Sixteen type N recepticals on the back panel provide a means of connecting the feedlines from the antenna-mounted VSA preamplifers (eight each vertically and horizontally polarized) to the eight quadrature hybrids (blue modules at the rear of the box). These produce eight RHCP and eight LHCP signal components, which are connected via phase-matched cables to a pair of eight-way L-band power combiners, mounted on the bottom of the enclosure. The output ports from each of the two power combiners feed a cascade consisting of a 20 dB gain line amplifier (on the right side of the box), a variable attenuator (mounted on the front wall of the box), and then a second buffer amplifier, before being routed to the output connectors on the rear panel (one each for RHCP and LHCP). On the left side of the box is a power supply to provide operating potential to the line amplifiers. The attenuators allow the amplitudes of the two orthogonal circular polarizations to be equalized. N6TX photo

6 November 2004

Detail of the two 24 inch linear actuator arms, used at Project Argus station JM55ht for declination and right ascension adjustment. Hamdi Mani photo

30 October 2004

In Tunisia, Hamdi Mani sets a good example by wearing safety equipment when working on the antenna at Project Argus station JM55ht. A close look at his hard hat reveals that it sports a SETI League logo. Hamdi Mani photo

23 October 2004

Two weeks ago, these six SETI League members were among the more than 2,000 space enthusiasts participating in the International Astronautical Congress in Vancouver Canada. They are all members of the SETI Permanent Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics. SETI League photo

16 October 2004

SETI League members in Washington DC this week for the International Space Symposium sponsored by our sister organization, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), got a treat when visiting the nearby Smithsonian Institution. This small satellite, the actual full-size Microsat mechanical test model, was recently put on display in the Information Age exhibit at the National Museum of American History. AMSAT volunteers built it for use in vibration tests in the U.S. and at the European Space Agency's Ariane launch facility in Kourou, French Guyana. W3PK photo

9 October 2004

Tom Hutter captured this interesting example of bistatic radar while monitoring the uplink of the W2ETI Moonbounce Beacon, transmitting from just a few km away. The vertical line is the beacon (you can see the steady carrier, and the Morse Code identifier starting at the very bottom of the trace). The diagonal lines (one straight, the other curved) are reflections of the beacon off the skin of aircraft passing overhead. The Doppler shift of the signals (indicated by the slope of the lines) is an indication of the velocity of the reflecting aircraft. The curved radar return is an indication of the aircraft changing relative velocity (either by speeding up and slowing down, or by following a curved flight path). Tom writes of the second aircraft, "The craft was so low, I could here the pitch of the engine and the pitch of the signal from the receiver simultaneously. They were both resonating at the same frequency as it passed. (Had an eerie stereo effect.)" Tom Hutter image

2 October 2004

The first radio telescope in Tunisia is slowly taking shape, and it is a Project Argus station! Regional coordinator Hamdi Mani has his three-meter diameter mesh dish mounted with two 24 inch linear actuator arms for azimuth-elevation tracking, and is now working on getting the electronics installed. He writes, "a radio telescope is really a good project for high school students. I will try to convince the ministry of education of my country to include this kind of project in the schools and colleges." Hamdi Mani photo

25 September 2004

At last month's SETICon, the editors of Contact In Context honored The SETI League website, presenting special Best Ideas Awards to SETI League founder Richard Factor (left), and webmaster H. Paul Shuch (right), for "providing a wide-ranging forum for creative, innovative, and controversial ideas. Such a forum, free from ultraconservative prejudice and subtle censorship, is especially important in the SETI field -- a field that clearly needs fresh ideas and voices." SETI League photo

18 September 2004

Argus station FN14xw went on the air from Smiths Falls, Ontario Canada last winter, with a 1.5 meter dish. When the snow (finally!) melted, Marcus began upgrading to a 3.7 meter dish. VE3MDL photo

11 September 2004

Now Available: Proceedings of SETICon04: our latest Conference Proceedings on CD-ROM. Hypertext (read it with your web browser); includes abstracts, papers, photos, graphics, and songs, plus an archive of the first ten years of SearchLites, our quarterly newsletter. Suggested Contribution: $15 postpaid in US, $20 postpaid elsewhere. SETI League image

4 September 2004

For the fourth year in a row, every attendee went home from our recent SETICon with a door prize. First Prize, a 1420 MHz weak signal source kit donated by Down East Microwave Inc., went to Marko Cebokli (right). Allen Tough (left) won the Grand Prize, a 1420 MHz helical antenna feed contributed by Olde Antenna Labs of Denver CO. SETI League photo

28 August 2004

Last weekend, new member George Raynault and his wife Melanie hosted a dozen SETI enthusiasts at their home just outside of Toronto, for an afternoon of freewheeling, speculative discussion. We thank George for his enthusiasm, energy and encouragement. Gloria Rong photo

21 August 2004

At last weekend's SETICon Awards Reception, awards committee chairman David Ocame (left) and executive director H. Paul Shuch present the third Orville N. Greene Service Award via teleconference to Ed Cole, AL7EB. Cole, a prominent radio amateur and microwave experimenter, has been an active contributor to SETI League technical activities for a number of years. He serves as The SETI League's volunteer Regional Coordinator for Alaska, participates actively on the organization's various technical email discussion lists, has given papers at previous SETICon Technical Symposia, has contributed articles and software to the group's website, and last year conducted the first SETICon Hardware Workshop. Further details appear in this Press Release. SETI League photo

14 August 2004

At last month's Bioastronomy Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, member Claudio Maccone (center) and friends dine at the revolving Perlan Restaurant. Note the bright Midnight Sunlight streaming in through the windows, at eleven o'clock at night! C. Maccone photo

7 August 2004

At last week's VHF Conference in Toronto, Central States VHF Society treasurer Bruce Richardson presents executive director H. Paul Shuch with the Society's annual contribution to The SETI League. Over the years, these gifts have totaled $1300, and have been used to support The SETI League's technical activities, including our moonbounce beacon project. N6CL photo

31 July 2004

It is with great sorrow that we report the death last week of Prof. John D. Kraus, W8JK, a SETI League life member and one of the world's great radio astronomers. John was an amazingly young and active 94. His obituary appears here. N6TX photo

24 July 2004

From Sweden, Argonaut Greger Gimseus sends us this spectrogram of a GPS L1 signal. He observes, "I took this 1MHz spectrum of a pass and there are four sidebands twice as powerful as the center-tuned carrier. You clearly see the center frequency isn't necessarily the strongest signal." Greg. Gimseus image

17 July 2004

Two weeks ago, fifty Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) members gathered for their annual meeting at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank WV. Here they assemble at a faithful reconstruction of the world's first radio telescope, Karl Jansky's Bruce Array antenna (circa 1930). The construction of this working replica was supervised in the 1960s by amateur radio astronomer Grote Reber, W9GFZ. Click for more SARA 2004 pictures. KG4ENF photo

10 July 2004

Jupiter burst signal processed by VE2TPR. This final image in a sequence of three is a waterfall display of the signal depicted previously in time and frequency domains (see Images of the Week for the past two weeks). These types of analyses help Project Argus participants to perfect their software and techniques. VE2TPR image

3 July 2004

Second Jupiter burst signal processed by VE2TPR. This one is a spectrogram of the signal depicted last week in the time domain. VE2TPR image

26 June 2004

Peter Cheasley, VE2TPR, is busy doing digital audio processing on decametric wave bursts received from Jupiter. Here is the time-domain display of one such burst. VE2TPR image

19 June 2004

Screen shot of the initial spectral analysis application for VE3MDL's new SETI receiver (see last week's Image of the Week). Marcus writes, "It doesn't do waterfalls (yet), the magnitude scaling is wrong, and there's no LMST markers on the total-power window. This particular shot was taken when the receiver was turned off, so the frequency shown is just the last frequency the tuner was tuned to. Lots of little things to tweak over the next little while." VE3MDL image

12 June 2004

Argonaut Marcus Leach, VE3MDL, has been working on a homebrew digital receiver design incorporating a satellite TV tuner. Here is his software front panel Graphical User Interface, designed to run under Linux. VE3MDL image

5 June 2004

This rectangular waveguide horn antenna was designed by Dick Knadle, K2RIW and built by Jeff Lichtman, founder of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers, for HEP research in the late 1980s. The cavity was designed to dimensions provided by Fred Crews of NRAO Green Bank WV. At 29 by 29 inches of aperture by four feet in length, this design performs on a par with the later SETI Horn of Plenty. Radio Astronomy Supplies photo

29 May 2004

Another VE3MDL detection with his homebrew digital receiver, this time of a NOAA polar-orbiting weather satellite at 1554.5 MHz. Marcus writes, "This is using my software-based power detection algorithm. The power level is referred to the input power to the sound card, not the antenna. The general shape is consistent with observations I've made using the baudline spectrum analyser. The integration time constant on this particular run was 10 seconds. The 'signal' constitutes a 0.1dB increase in received power--you can see that there's plenty of resolution available." VE3MDL image

22 May 2004

At the recent EuroSETI04 workshop, Peter Wright and Alexander Zaitsev symbolically remove the Iron Curtain (a chain-mail wrapper) from a bottle of Scotch wiskey which Peter has presented to Sasha. This meeting represents the first coming together of SETI League members from East and West (but it will not be the last one). SETI League photo

15 May 2004

VE3MDL received his first GPS L1 image on a homebrew digital receiver. Marcus writes that he is "using the I and Q outputs of a DBS digital satellite tuner tuned to 1575.4375 Mhz. The actual S/N is about 10dB. The tuner is computer controlled (from Linux), along with digital RF gain setting and DC offset for the detector. A future instantiation of this will have a larger FFT bandwidth available (96Khz, instead of 48Mhz), which will allow seamless channel-to-channel coverage (the tuner has a channel spacing of 62.5Khz)." VE3MDL image

8 May 2004

Those of you who missed our recent European SETI Science and Technology Workshop may wish to obtain Proceedings of EuroSETI04, our first Conference Proceedings on CD-ROM. Hypertext (read it with your web browser); includes abstracts, papers, photos, software, songs, and presentation graphics. Suggested Contribution: $15 postpaid in US, $20 postpaid elsewhere. Order here. SETI League image

1 May 2004

Attendees at last month's EuroSETI04 Science and Technology Workshop visited Peter Wright's radio telescope in Mannheim, Germany. Here Peter shows off his innovative hinged feed-arm design, used for quickly changing bands on his three meter dish. For further technical details, click for a virtual tour of the Mannheim Radio Telescope. SETI League photo

24 April 2004

Most Project Argus stations start out when members acquire a surplus C-band satellite TV dish. This one, which seems to have fallen off its mount, is apparently no longer receiving video (or maybe the signal is just a bit snowy), so might be a good candidate for acquisition. Members have found that such derelict dishes are generally available for the asking, and can be readily repurposed into sensitive L-band radio telescopes. Devin Bailey photo

17 April 2004

Last month's EuroSETI04 Science and Technology Workshop drew 15 SETI League members from the US, Scotland, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Russia. Additional photos are available here. The next such meeting is being scheduled to coincide with SETICon06, is planned for 8-10 September, 2006, and will again be held at the Starkenburg Observatory, Heppenheim Germany. SETI League photo

10 April 2004

Stelio Montebugnoli, who heads the SETI Italia project from the Medecina radio telescopes in Italy, was honored last week at EuroSETI04, The SETI League's first European SETI Science and Technology Workshop, with the annual Giordano Bruno Memorial Award, for significant contributions to SETI science. See this Press Release for details. SETI League photo

3 April 2004

Marcus Leech, VE3MDL, built this helical dish feed for 1420 MHz from exotic materials. He writes, "I combined my two hobbies, in that the form for the helix is standard paper 2.6 inch airframe tubing for high-powered model rockets. You can get this in fibreglass and a pultruded material called 'quantum tube'. It turns out that 2.65 inch OD is a near-perfect size for winding a helix with a 1420.405 Mhz center frequency. Serendipitous!" VE3MDL photo

27 March 2004

Bertrand Pinel F5PL is detecting the downlink signals from the European Space Agency's SMART-1 spacecraft, enroute to the Moon. Launched in October 2003 from Korou, French Guiana, SMART-1 uses a unique ion impulse engine, and after 15 to 17 months in transition between geostationary transfer and lunar orbits, is expected to orbit the Moon for at least six months. Its 2235 MHz telemetry downlink is received by Bertrand's 7-metre dish at greater than 30 dB signal to noise ratio! Note the significant Doppler shift in this spectrogram (indicated by the slope of the received signal). F5PL image

20 March 2004

Several years ago, member David Fahey developed a control program for the Icom IC-R8500 receiver. At right is the virtual front panel produced by that program. The Object Pascal source code and Windows executable are available for download. David Fahey image

13 March 2004

At the European Radio Astronomy Club station in Mannheim Germany, on the fence separating the observatory from the adjacent walkway and bicycle path, Das Universophone (a speaker connected to the output of ERAC's Project Argus receiver) allows the public to listen in on cosmic static. SETI League members attending the EuroSETI04 Workshop later this month will have an opportunity to visit this facility. SETI League photo

6 March 2004

First light at VE3MDL: Argonaut Marcus Leech made this sun transit image in Ontario, Canada, with a 1.5 meter dish at 11.9 GHz, in November of 2002. He writes, "The receiving setup was mostly homebrew, and quite unsophisticated. A commercial Ku-band LNBF, a couple of line amplifiers, a dielectric filter (free sample!) with a bandwidth of 50Mhz, a zero-bias Schottky detector (HSMS-2852--thanks to Agilent for another free sample), and a conventional DC-amplifier. The integration is computed in software, rather than in hardware. The hardware integrator is fixed at about 0.5sec, with samples being taken at 5Hz." VE3MDL image

28 February 2004

Last autumn, the European Radio Astronomy Club voted its highest honor, the DSP-FFT Award, to SETI League president Richard Factor, for his efforts to promote amateur radio astronomy in Europe (see this Press Release). Some weeks after returning from the European Radio Astronomy Congress in Germany, executive director H. Paul Shuch had an opportunity to present Factor with his award plaque. SETI League photo

21 February 2004

Jim Van Prooyen, N8PQK, made this drift-scan observation at 406.7 MHz with a 75 kHz bandwidth, from RA 2h 43', DEC N 3 Deg 7', near the star Gamma Ceti. The units on the Y-axis are in VOLTS, and the units on the x-axis are samples from the start of the file. There are 20 seconds between data points. Jim has never seen any (useful) data from this part of the sky before. He concludes, "This could be a man made source. A carrier wave from a low earth orbiting spacecraft is the likely source I can think of, or some type of star flare." N8PQK image

14 February 2004

Rob Lodder, WD8BTA, built this ten-foot dish for SETI observations from Argus station EM77to in Lexington KY, USA. Executive director H. Paul Shuch stopped by Lodder's station last summer, while enroute to the Central States VHF Conference in Oklahoma. SETI League photo

7 February 2004

Tommy Henderson, WD5AGO, shows off two horn antennas used for radio astronomy. The larger of the two (on an az-el mount) is optimized for 1.4 GHz hydrogen line observations. Tommy is holding a smaller horn for 5.7 GHz methanol line measurements. Executive director H. Paul Shuch had an opportunity to visit Henderson's station during last summer's Central States VHF Conference in Oklahoma. SETI League photo

31 January 2004

Left to right: Professors Allen Tough and Rob Lodder present Contact In Context Best Ideas Awards to authors Scot Stride and Dr. Bruce Cornet, at last April's annual SETI League Awards Banquet.. Other publication award winners not present included Dr. Steve Dick, Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Stephen Webb, and Dr. John R. Rice. See this Press Release. SETI League photo

24 January 2004

By 12 December 2003, Bertrand Pinel's reception of the ACE spacecraft (see last week's featured image) improved to +13 dB SNR, as its elliptical orbit of the L1 point moved it more than one degree above the Sun, as viewed from Earth. Click on the speaker icon at left to hear the audio signal of the spacecraft's S-band telemetry, as received on Bertrand's seven-meter dish. (1033 kByte WAV file; 134 seconds) F5PL image

17 January 2004

In France, F5PL first detected the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft on 10 December 2003. ACE orbits the L1 libration point which is a point of Earth-Sun gravitational equilibrium about 1.5 million km from Earth and 148.5 million km from the Sun. With a semi-major axis of approximately 200,000 km the elliptical orbit affords ACE a prime view of the Sun and the galactic regions beyond. The spacecraft has enough propellant on board to maintain an orbit at L1 until ~2019. The signal is about six dB above the background (which includes significant sun noise) on Bertrand's seven meter dish. Frequency is approximately 2278.3587 MHz, with very little observed Doppler shift. The carrier and first data sidebands are clearly visible. F5PL image

10 January 2004

SETI League regional coordinator Christian Monstein, HB9SCT, observes solar flares from his home in Freienbach, Switzerland (JN47je), using this 42 to 865 MHz fixed-mounted log-periodic antenna pointed at zero degrees declination. HB9SCT photo

3 January 2004

Click here for lots more pictures.

email the Webmaster

| Home | General | Memb Svcs | Publications | Press | Technical | Internet | Index | entire website copyright © The SETI League, Inc.; Maintained by Microcomm this page last updated 25 December 2004

Top of Page