Yes! Arecibo!

April 17, 2010 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Or should that be maybe? Arecibo?

In the world of visual astronomy, it is well known that your eye’s peak sensitivity to light doesn’t occur right when you are staring at an object directly. To detect the faintest galaxies, you must stare slightly away from where the object is, and you’ll see it pop into view. This technique is called “averted vision”.

This leads to another phenomenon, which is detection through the use of “averted imagination”. You know a faint fuzzy is there, so you imagine that you see it.

While KP4AO was operating CW from Arecibo, I took my naked FT-817 outside with the cheapie 11 element cheap yagi I made, and aimed it where I determined the moon should be. And I heard… well…. something. I’d normally drag my laptop out with me to record, but I had my little Sony digital recorder, so used that instead. Here’s the audio, transferred back to my laptop (the file is a .WAV file, uncompressed, but the Sony does do some compression, so chances are this is slightly less legible than what I heard at the headphones):

Recording of Arecibo (???) from CM87ux using an FT-817 and a Cheap Yagi

I heard a few characters scattered in there, but maybe it’s my imagination. Tell me what you think!

Comments

Comment from Elwood Downey
Time 4/17/2010 at 6:32 pm

I heard one dit about 2/5 of the way through, that’s it.

Comment from autojack
Time 4/17/2010 at 9:07 pm

I had this feeling a few times when trying to listen to ham sats with an HT and a rubber ducky antenna. When listening to unrestrained static and hoping to hear a voice, your mind definitely can play tricks on you.

Comment from Ricardo – CT2GQV
Time 4/18/2010 at 2:06 pm

That’s a contagious phenomenon….had the same thing here, but with harder symptons…. it was a 6 element, homebrewed in 30 minutes, Yagi with coat hanger wire, indoor (there was some heavy rain) and just a small hint were the moon was….. I am pretty sure that there was something, somewhere… at least now I have a UHF Yagi (sort of).

Comment from Eric_SFO Area
Time 4/25/2010 at 10:07 am

hi Mark-
..maybe something @ 2:21….

I was at the Visalia DxConvention. On the way home Sunday, we set up my ft857d and an Arrow Ant on a camera tripod. Location: 20mins N. of Fresno on Hwy.99 next to the ARCO truck stop. hi

With the agc-off and the Arrow pointed at the moon, I was able to copy KP4AO in JT65B mode..
Arecibo was easily audible in the ext speaker. Many decode sequences followed!

JT65b sigs were from -27 to -10 (!) dB s/n or so for over an hour.
KP4AO Freq: 432.044 usb. I also decoded DL6YEH in JO32 on a different freq!

Running split on the 857d I transmitted at 432.047+- with abt 19watts- but no luck.hi

Using “Total Recorder” along with WSJT was a big help, and I have some jpegs and good wav files of the event.

I played with “ARGO” too, but the CW and JT65 Spectrum tools inside of WSJT wk’d the best.

If you would like a few pics or a wav, just shoot me an email.

73 Eric n6spp

ps- still waiting for a HAARP 7mhz card from ’09. hi