SETI
By Bob
Wexelbaum, W2ILP
The Search for Extra Terrestrial
Intelligence (SETI) was pioneered by at least 17 famous scientists, who
believed that there is a reasonably high probability that high life forms exist
in other parts of the galaxy; and that life
has probably developed better technology than we on Earth because is at a
higher level of intelligence than humans on Earth.. Of the 17 scientists, 13 believed that UFOs
were impossible, and the remaining 4 believed that UFOs were unlikely. Most of the scientists were not believers in traditional
religions, in spite of having religious upbringings. However they all got involved in musing about
what any discovery of extra terrestrial intelligence might mean to theology and
global sociology. This in spite of the
logic that discovery of extra terrestrial intelligence might have little to do
with proving or disproving religious beliefs, politics or human ethics. Their
motto “We are not alone”, however took on, for some folks, a concept that was
seen by them as a religion of its own.
I guess it was like the perceived need for CW, that some Hams have had,
which had been accused of becoming a religious faith. I believe that such musing is all moot and
the first question a scientist must ask is, “Is it possible to communicate with
ETs, using any equipment now known to men.” The scientists must then ask
communications engineers this question, as they would when developing any other
type of communications link. Thus it is
not just a question of “Do ETs
exist?”…but… “Is it possible to prove that ETs exist by receiving communication
using methods proposed by the SETI Pioneers?”.
The point being that there is no need to believe or disbelieve what may
not be possible to prove in any case. My
belief is that ETs may exist but it is impossible to receive communication from
them using SETI single hop methods and it is most probably impossible to accomplish
any such communication within our lifetimes..
JUNE 2006 VOL. 79, NO. 6
CIR 120
Of the 17 SETI
promoting scientists, the works of only three are well known to me. They are Frank Drake, Carl Sagan and John Kraus.
SETI (continued)
It was Drake who based the probability of the
existence of Intelligent ETs, on his famous equation.. See http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html
By plugging large numbers into his equation, Drake concluded that high IQ ETs
must exist elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy.
In my opinion it may or may not matter how many stars (suns), and planets
may exist in the galaxy, because the coincidental existence of a planet that
supports life forms of a higher order than humans does not just depend on the
kind of statistical evidence that a Quality Control engineer might use to
predict how many bad transistors might exist in a very large production
run. It was Kepler, I believe, who said
that if you dropped a pencil a number of times approaching infinity, one time
it will fall up. I think that Drake
stretches for that sort of logic. Thus
it could be stated that the infinitely small probability of a miracle had to be
accounted for in an infinite number of pencil drops, because infinity is so
large a quantity that it would also be miraculous if one could count that far
and remain on the same gravitational platform following usual laws.. Conversely nothing is perfectly certain, even
the Gravitational Law of physics, when dealing with infinity.. So OK I can believe that there may be ETs out
there who want to call us up because there is an astronomical number of planets
out there…but I don’t believe that they will be doing it in the manner that the
SETI pioneers expected or were willing to spend both our government’s and their
own time and money on. My doubts rise because I know that there are also a near
astronomical number of dandelions that pop up every May…but that doesn’t lead
me to believe that even one dandelion might just happens to be a talking tulip
or the home of a radio ant that is smarter than the average ant.
It was Carl Sagan who publicized SETI and organized a
group of both amateurs and psudoscientists in his “Planetary Society” and “SETI
League”. (I admit I was initially sucker enough to join myself.) They became obsessed with SETI and lobbied for
government funding in Congress. Some
were hams, who joined with SWLs and other listeners in the fruitless task of
listening for ET signals. The receivers
of opportunity being discarded satellite TV dishes and their associated
microwave receivers; as well as some listening time using the giant antenna at
Aricibo,
The next SETI scientist I was familiar with was John Kraus. Kraus was the author of “Electromagnetics”,
the text book which I had to use in college for a two semester course on that
subject. He also authored a text book
called “Antennas”, which is probably the best antenna book for the few people
who can deal with the dels and curls of Maxwell’s Equations. Kraus
was, no doubt, a pioneer of Radio Astronomy, and so one wonders why a man of
such credentials would promote SETI.
This all came about by what was known as the WOW signal. Apparently while performing radio astronomy,
an unidentified coherent signal was received by Kraus’ “Big Ear” at
I am now going to introduce another equation, which is
more relevant than Drake’s equation. I
came across versions of it when I worked with ECM receivers, which are
microwave receivers for receiving signals from friendly and enemy radars. They are similar to the fuzz busters that
motorists use to get warned about police radar traps, only much more
sophisticated. The ranges that these
units need to cover are trivial compared to the distances to any possible communicating
planet, but in spite of that, the basic range equation remains the same, as it
contains the same functional parameters which can be used to calculate the
maximum distances from which discernable signals can be received, which could
be able to overcome the losses of the space attenuation that is caused by
distance.
See https://ewhdbks.mugu.navy.mil/one-way.htm
. It may be easier to get there by using
the Goggle browser and clicking on: One-way Radar Range Equation. I’m running out of space here so I’ll leave
you at this point and continue next month.
Meanwhile if you like to do math, you can play with this equation,
putting in the best parameters that you think the alleged ET geniuses might have
in the way of microwave power, antenna, selected wavelength, etrc.. You can find how many miles or kilometers are
in a light year and how many light years (
.
PRESIDENT’S PAGE
BY
KE2LJ
Our May meeting was held at the Bethpage Credit Union
building. It was a nice meeting room, set up with all the A/V equipment that we
would need. Our turnout was low as usual, but we had a video, and lots of good
coffee and donuts. The usual suspects were in attendance, plus some folks we
don’t see to often. Our next meeting is June 21st at UL in Melville.
We’ll try to start the meeting at 5:30. I’m not quite sure what we will be
doing for entertainment, but I have some really good possibilities. One is
somewhat interesting. It seems that last year, a couple of DXers went to
At the June meeting, we will
have a brief discussion of our upcoming Field Day operation on June 24th.
I spoke about this in some detail in the last newsletter, and will try to
finish it all up next week. Hopefully, you can spare a few hours working with
us that weekend. See you then. –Pat KE2LJ
GRUMMAN AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING 5/17/2006
Karen KC2OPX (not present)
The meeting was called to order at 5:57
PM by Pat.
TREASURERS REPORT – Ed, WB2EAV REPEATERS – Gordon, KB2UB
Finances
continue to be in good shape. There is need to move the
VE REPORT – Bob, W2ILP NET REPORT- Zack, WB2PUE
Karen, KC2OPX upgraded to General Class. The Sunday Morning Net was poor as
all could
Another applicant passed General written test not copy each other.
but failed 5 wpm CW.
VEs present were AB2NT, KC2HNN, W2ILP and W2QUV.
NEW BUSINESS:
Field
Day preparation was discussed. Field Day
2006 will be held in the same location as last year.
Some
new ARRL rules award extra points if new or young hams operate.
PROGRAM:
Marty
Miller, NN2C brought a recording of a DX expedition to
The meeting
was adjoined at
t
GARC NETS:
40 Meters: 7.289 MHz at 7:30 AM EST
Sundays.
2 Meters (via repeaters): 146.745 MHz (-.600)at
145.330 MHz (- .600) at 9:00 PM EST Thursdays.
[Tone for
both repeaters is 136.5 Hz]
(ARES/RACES) Mondays 9 PM.
MEETINGS
General Meetings of the GARC
are held on the third Wednesday of each month, starting at 5:30 PM. The meetings are usually held at the
Underwriters Lab,
GARC WEB SITE The web site of the GARC can be found at http://www.qsl.net/wa2lqo/ Webmaster is Pat Masterson KE2LJ. Pictures of GARC activities, archives of
newsletters, roster of members, and other information about the GARC may be
found there.
INTERNET LINK OF THE MONTH FOR INTERNERDS
One good contact often may
lead to others. While monitoring the
Hellschreiber reflector I saw that experiments continue with different flavors
of Hell, as well as new digital modes.
There are several programming hams who are experimenting with software that
they develop and they build upon a basic audio spectrum analyzer as they
experiment. The software to generate
this audio spectrum analyzer is made available by DL4YHF at:-
http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectral.html Actually this is a home page which can
link you to the software, once you decide to get it. I suggest that you print out the 7 pages at
this address with a color printer and read about the “Spectrum Lab” features
and applications for yourself. The
spectrum analyzer, that you can then create, can enable you to acquire signals
in a waterfall display, similar to the software for digital modes previously
discussed in this newsletter. It can do
a lot more, including displaying signal tracks in lots of different colors, and
many possible applications are mentioned at the web site above. I don’t have space to explain further here
but details are on the web site. The
program loaded easily, but not from the slow qsl. net site as explained. If you have a set up for digital mode
connections that is all you will need, but if not, all you need do is connect
the audio output of your SSB HF transceiver or any radio receiver to your computer’s sound card audio input and
you are in business. DL4YHF has been
able to make a direction finder for a VLF receiver.
The Spectrum Lab spectrum
analyzer could be used as a tool to acquire and identify the mode of any
signal, but don’t waste your time looking for ET signals….Read my analyses of
the SETI program in this and the next issue of this newsletter.
FEEDBACK
Mel Cohn, K2MC, pointed out
that I had made in error in my Hellschreiber article last month. I had said that Art Linkletter said, “Aren’t
we devils?” on a show called “Truth or Consequences”. It wasn’t Linkletter who was the MC. It wasn’t K2MC either. It was RALPH EDWARDS. Goggle confirmed that Edwards passed away in
November 2005. Linkletter ,who said
“Kids say the funniest things”, is still alive and kidding.
Dave Ledo, AB2EF, gave me an
article from “Electronic Products” magazine, to read and ponder over, titled “Carbon
Nanotubes Boost Ultra Capacitor Storage Density”. I might discuss this technological
nano-progress in the development of nano batteries in a future newsletter. Right now my nano-brain cells are busy
thinking about giant Suns that are many light years away in our galaxy, so I
admit it is difficult for me to switch into the nano mode at present.
Bob Christen, W2FPF e-mailed
me the solution to the May cryptogram. In spite of my error in encoding the ‘r’
in ‘prefer’, Bob solved the puzzle. He
must like cryptogram solving as he began to work on this one as soon as he
infolded his May “CQ de…” at the board meeting.
PUZZLE
Here is another cryptogram:
ZHZ EJB CMCT KCVT
JQ V
YHZ INVEHAS
VUUJBAWVAW CMCA HQ KC GVAWCZ WJ DC JAC? --RVUYHC
PVXJA—
Solution to May’s
Cryptogram: WE PREFER TO BELIEVE THAT
THE ABSENCE OF INVERTED COMMAS GUARENTEES THE ORIGINALITY OF A THOUGHT, WHEREAS
IT MAY BE MERELY THAT THE UTTERER HAS FORGOTTEN THE SOURCE. –