Talk to Aliens

I found something the other day and I just wanted to share it.

TalkToAliens.com is the world's first intergalactic communication system. Our transmitter and 10.5-foot parabolic antenna will transmit your voice -- LIVE, as you talk -- to the deepest reaches of the cosmos. We welcome you to participate in this truly unique service.

This is a link to their dish and has some tech info. Here is some Q&A with them:

Q. Is this a gimmick? Are you really transmitting my messages into space?
A. This is not a gimmick. And, yes, we'll transmit your messages -- live -- into space as you are speaking through your telephone. And, with our NEW e-mail service, we'll broadcast up your text messages (up to 1,000 words long!) into the deepest reaches of space. PLUS you'll get a FREE "Certificate of Interstellar Broadcast" with every text message. Talk about an "out-of-this-world" gift!

Q. What proof do we have that you are indeed transmitting?
A. We are working to provide live "proof" -- such as a live Web cam with views of our transmitter and our parabolic dish antenna. But we've just launched the service, which is financed with our own private funds. Now that the transmitter is up and running, our attention will focus on some of the more interactive opportunities, like the Web cam.

Q. Who are you?
A. As was reported on Space.com, we are indeed the avionics members of the Civilian Space eXploration Team (CSXT) -- the team that launched the world's first private / amateur rocket into space on May 17, 2004. (For details, visit: www.civilianspace.com.) Although "TalkToAliens.com" is a fun name, our aim is very scientific. Our team is composed of scientists, engineers, and inventors. And our project spans a wide range of proprietary Intellectual Property that's been developed over the last five years. We're doing our very best to adhere to sound scientific principles as we develop our service. We particularly admire the decades of work and body of science of the SETI Institute. As you can read on SETI.org, their mission is "to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe". We hope our efforts contribute in some small way.

Q. Where are you located?
A. Our transmitter is currently located in a residential area of central Connecticut. We can't be more specific than that at this time. If our service grows in popularity, we will look to relocate our system to a public area -- and provide precise details. Stay tuned for more info.

Q. Where in space are you sending my messages?
A. Based on discussions with astronomy consultants, we decided to point our antenna into the area of the sky with the highest density of regional stars (and, thus, hopefully planets and other civilizations). That region is commonly referred to as the "Milky Way" -- the galaxy in which our own solar system resides. As the sky appears to turn over the earth, our fixed-mounted parabolic antenna sweeps through much of the Milky Way Galaxy (and its estimated 400 billion stars). For more information on the Milky Way Galaxy, visit: www.seds.org...

Q. Why do you charge $3.99 per minute? And why is it through a 900 number?
A. This entire service is funded and run by a handful of individuals who have put in considerable personal money and countless hours of time. The fee will help us begin to offset our equipment and time investments, and help us develop new features for our service. The 900 number keeps things very simple. You only pay for the time you use. It also eliminates the billing complexity and fraud commonly associated with credit cards.

Q. Can I listen in on other people's broadcasts?
A. You can try, but you're not likely to hear anything. Our parabolic dish transmitting antenna is designed to focus all of the RF energy and send it "upwards" into space. However, it can't be absolutely ruled out that some of the RF energy could be reflected by the atmosphere, the moon, etc., and end up being received here on earth. If you'd like to try to listen, our transmitting frequency is 2.43211 GHz.

Q. Can I say anything I'd like in my broadcast message?
A. We strongly encourage that you refrain from any profane or indecent language. As mentioned above, it is highly unlikely that anyone here on earth will hear your messages. Even so, it would seem prudent and polite to keep your language respectable. Feel free to speak your mind, sing, chant, rant, etc. to your heart's content. Be a good "Earth Ambassador" to any civilizations that might be tuned in!

Q. Can I send pictures into space? How about e-mail?
A. We have a lot of exciting broadcast technologies that we are concurrently developing. As described at the top of this F.A.Q., we just launched our exciting new e-mail service that will broadcast your text messages into space. We'd like to eventually provide a way for you also transmit other forms of text messages -- including Instant Messages (IMs). We are also working on a system that will accept your digital photos and desktop video-camera feeds and broadcast them into space. Stay tuned as we work on some fantastic enhancements to our transmission system!

Q. How long have you been working on the "TalkToAliens" service?
A. The development of the service began over five years ago -- in January 2000. It's taken significant effort and personal dedication by a number of RF and broadcast engineers, scientists, and other individuals, to bring it all to fruition. We hope you find our efforts worthwhile and enjoyable!

Anyhow, not sure I buy that their transmitter is able to broadcast that far. Doesn't look as powerful as the SETI equipment, but then I am no expert. Are there any experts out there with this kind of thing? I would certainly be interested to know your thoughts.

Scam?
Real?

A very intersting pos Zedd - thank you!

The problem is that the team only appear to have access to a 10.5 ft radio antenna which, unfortunately, is very small when working at radio wavelengths. This is because the resolution of a radio telescope is much smaller than an equivalent opticl telescope. Consider this example, quoted from this source.

"Example: Consider a radio telescope observing radio waves with a wavelength of 6 centimeters. How big does the radio telescope have to be to have the same resolution as an optical telescope with an aperture of 5 centimeters observing light at 500 nanometers?

Solution: Resolution is proportional to wavelength divided by diameter. Radio wavelengths are much larger than optical. Here the ratio is 6 cm to 500 nm, which is 6 ×10-2 divided by 5 ×10-7 which is 120,000. That means the radio telescope has to be this much bigger to have the same effective resolution! Single dish radio telescopes are big, but not that big."

So, whilst the principle is good, in fact, the chance of the "live chat" that is being "beamed" from the 10.5ft telescope being isolated from the general background interference and QRM from the Earth by aliens would be extremely unlikely. The signal would simply be "swamped" by all the noise around it.

Remember that SETI uses the Arecibo radio telescope and ths is 1000ft (305m) in diameter - nearly 100 times the diameter of the parabolic dish available to TalkToAliens.com.

So, I don't think it is a hoax - but the chance of success is very doubtful. Iwon't use this service myself at any rate!!

Caveat emptor perhaps??

Someone please get on there and say....

"Humans taste very bad" in all known languages....

you don't need a huge dish to broadcast into space. recieving on the other hand is a totaly different matter. but what probably is lacking, is enough power, and a powerful enough tranceiever.(if that is the right word) othervise the messages is probably not going very far out. hmmm. highpowered microburst transmitter. maybe that is what is needed. but who knows, maybe the aliens don't use radiowaves as us, but rather use light of some kind.
well, we can only speculate for the time beeing, and hope that the messages are recieved by someone nice.

electromagnetic fields propogate like gravity, where signal strength is a function of an "inverse square law." In other words, the signal fades exponenetially when the distance is doubled.

The flip side is, the signal strength will never go to absolute zero.

So their claim that your signal is broadcast to "the furthest reaches of the cosmos" is technically true.

But then, so does your cell phone.

Of course, if you want to talk to real live aliens, come on down to Texas for a day . . .

Originally posted by ZeddicusZulZorander
Scam?
Real?

IMO, scam.

Thanks Zed This is a really interesting stuff. I put this in my bookmarks and look forward to new enhancements of this system.

why not just stand in your yard and yell