That NASA posting of the Apollo 10 "music" tapes reminded me of something kind of cool that Nitro would probably find interesting along with any other radio geeks around here. I'm a radio geek at heart but never got my ham license
Long-delayed echoes are where a station transmits and their voice comes back at them a few to several seconds later. The most logical explanation, when the antenna is pointed toward the moon, is the reflection of radio signals off the moon's surface, which can happen and some people do it on purpose for fun. From what I understand (Hams, clarify this for me, please) it only works with shortwave bands.
So here's an example of a long-delayed echo caught in action:
Shortwave bounces off the atmosphere at night so some of the shorter echoes can be explained by signals bouncing up and down around the world several times. Moonbounce is going to be around two seconds but there are delays that are up to 10 seconds recorded.
I've actually experienced long delayed echoes a few times as a ham operator. One time in December 2007 while I was in Kokomo on business, I sat out in the car away from town a mile or two with a yagi antenna and was testing a rig on 10 meters (28.5 MHz if I recall correctly), upper side band (I think, it was a long time ago).
Wish I could remember what direction I was pointing the antenna when the really loud QRM (interference) started. It killed the frequency (couldn't hear any other stations) - or so I thought. I transmitted some tests and they echoed back!
The QRM itself was extremely similar to the QRM we suddenly picked up around midnight at the Grand Canyon earlier that year (September 24, 2007, to be exact):
It's funny how the flukes and harmful interference make for some of the best radio recordings.
On a side note, Wolfwood, you should really get your ham license! If you do, though, do not post your call sign here or anywhere you use your nom de plume because QRZ and the FCC database make your real name, address, etc. PUBLIC in association with your call sign and I know you want to shield your identity online.
Didn't you guys think the interference / noise at the Grand Canyon was HAARP?
Being in your car, what kind of directional antenna could you have with you that was portable? I understand you need really big antennas for the HF bands (at least to transmit).
Since HAARP transmits straight upward, you'd only get what bounces back down but if it interfered THAT much with radio, I don't think that would be it.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. -- Carl Sagan
My uncle's a ham operator and he's really interested in this kind of stuff, mostly the "mysterious" side of radio and unexplained space phenomena. I'm going to send these recordings to him and see what he thinks.
