Spectral analysis of the famous 1977 Wow! Signal

reply to post by shiman



I question your reasons to believe the signal is terrestrial in origin, although I have my own reasons to believe the same:

A sufficiently advanced civilization would transmit radio signals that would be very hard to distinguish from noise. If you look at radio signals produced on earth over the decades the spectrum is filled more and more with signals that are increasingly noise-like, greater number of lower powered transmitters (versus small number of high power transmitters)...

Assuming (ASSUMMING) a civilization follwed a path similar to ours: Radio communications grew and became more ubiquitous and they required more channels, and privacy, etc, then their radio signals would eventually be very noise-like, and thus hard to detect.... that is also assuming they didn't have something better than radio that we don't know of, but then again, radio is good so it is a very good candidate.


-rrr

reply to post by shiman


I am not sure what you mean by human based standards. Certainly they would not be using IEEE802.whatever and they would likely not have carrier frequencies that are integral multiples of 1/S but things like amplitude modulation and frequency modulation are mathematical principles, so I don't see reason to exclude those from the range of mathematical tools that an intelligent being might avail itself to communicate with. The very act of communicating over "radio" implies modulation: Convey message A by means of medium B. Very hard to avoid modulation no matter the planet. If I am mistaken, please show another way to send messages that does not involve "modulation" of some sort.


-rrr

reply to post by rickyrrr


Aliens would definately not follow standards like the NTSC, PAL, QAM, 802.11, and the like, whatever they do would look SIGNIFICANTLY different than ours, guaranteed, because they wouild have taken a MUCH different evolutionary path than ours. Its VERY egotistical to believe they would have evolved technologically, or biologically, like us Humans.

if you take a radio capture of some 802.11 2.4GHz traffic from around your neighborhood, and then viewed it spectrally (or converted it into audio) It would be VERY distinguished from background noise, becuase that's the point of broadcasting, is to produce a signal distinguishable from the everpresent static, so the receiver can just pick it right up.



This thread is about the supposed audio recording of the Wow Signal, i was not able to change the name of the thread after I posted it.

reply to post by rickyrrr


Communitcation via modulation is almost unavoidable. However, the type of modulation, and what the actual signal looks like is restricted to standards, here on earth. it's easy to identify if a signal is AM or FM, it's a little harder to identify WHAT the signal is carrying, because what it can carry varies quite a bit. However, we can compare and contrast the signal with known standards to identify if it's earth based.

The supposed audio was just a vocal recording slowed down by a factor of 5000% or so. The actual WOW signal was recorded as a series of numbers defining frequency and amplitudes every 12 seconds on a piece of paper, non reconstructable into a signal.

Hopefully on-topic, I suggest this although it requires a belief that aliens exist already.

What if we just aimed our radio telescopes at the Moon or Mars and picked up whatever communications the existing aliens were using.

After all, IF they exist, then they most likely have a communicatuions protocol of some kind and the signal would be so much stronger since it is much, much nearer(for the Moon, anyway). Why point your radio telescopes out into far off space picking up difficult to distuinguish weak signals, when the strong signals can be probably picked up from the Moon?

What equipment would an amateur need to point his receiver at the Moon to pick up & record communication for proof of 'intelligent life' signals?

reply to post by qmantoo

Totally on topic.

This is assuming there are alien life on those planets. But assuming these aliens are technologically advanced, they probably have figured out Quantum communication, a science barely in infancy here on earth. Quantum communication would be undetectable and instantaneous. A necessary advancement in extrasolar activities.
If they did decide to use vibration modulation type communication, yes it would be detectable by our current standards. The problem then would be identifying what frequencies they are using. Since the spectrum is frigging huge, the only people really capable of scanning the whole thing would be SETI or NASA, pretty much anybody funded by the USA government.

The amateurs equipment would depend on what frequencies he would want to scan.

Rather like SETI did, we could use the power of the masses. OK, so there would not be that many people who were interested in pointing a radio receiver of some kind at the Moon, but at least if anyone picked up something unusual, then it would generate further interest. Also, the analysis software has largely been written to determine patterns - like what SETI was using on home computers previously. Of course, no-one in the blinkered science community thinks there is anything on the Moon so they are unlikely to point a massive radio telescope onto the (relatively) massive target of the Moon.

Maybe the equipment would be relatively easy to get hold of - I dont know what would work, but with fairly powerful computers like the Rasberry Pi and others running full Linux we could easily have the computing power for under 100 US dollars and if old satellite dishes could be used for example, then I am sure you can pick those up for a few dollars too. The whole thing could probably be offered for under 500 dollars perhaps(?) which would allow at least some people with an interest to take part. After all, they spend lots on amateur telescopes dont they?

There are so many strange things which happen on the Moon from mysterious flashes in craters to the Moon itself 'ringing like a bell' when it is hit with a cast-off lunar spacecraft. These strange things mean that it might be worth a bit of investigation which, after all, is what science is supposed to do for us. It makes huge sense to examine the things close to us first and the stuff further away after that. Then if we find anything close by, we can have a chance of investigating it.

So... what equipment would be needed and what existing could be used?

Originally posted by qmantoo
Rather like SETI did, we could use the power of the masses. OK, so there would not be that many people who were interested in pointing a radio receiver of some kind at the Moon...

So... what equipment would be needed and what existing could be used?

Lots of people point radio antennas at the moon. There will be activity happening right now as you read this.

Amateur radio operator who are interested in the topic of EME (Earth-Moon-Earth), where they pick up transmissions from other amateurs that have been reflected off the moon. Lots of different amateurs in lots of places around the world using lots of different kinds of equipment (much of it home made) on lots of different frequencies.

Equipment so sensitive that they arent designed to pickup transmissions from the moon, but ECHOS from earth transmissions that have gone there and get reflected back.

And some of the provately owned equipment is rather impressive. Some hobbyists have got a bit of money to spend.

Those images are amazing. Are they all private people or are some companies with their own satellites etc

So, the Moon-Earth space is as polluted with radio frequencies as our own earth space is? That means we could not really tell if there was a 'alien' signal coming from the Moon or thereabouts, even if we wanted to.