strap the moon

[WA1GFZ]

http://www.arrl.org/?artid=7958

http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/mbann.html
Check this out

[WA1GFZ]

no but his electric bill is pretty high

[W1VD]

Frank

Excellent copy of both the 'direct' and EME path for the first hour. At times it was hard to tell by ear which was which - the echoes were so strong. Both sigs moved the s-meter upscale. Second hour with frequency change into the broadcast band not as impressive.

Measured anywhere from about 3 to 6 Hz doppler over the period. Check this out:

http://www.w1vd.com/EME1.jpg

http://www.w1vd.com/EME3.gif 

Part way through an unbelievably BIG sig slid onto frequency...strong enough to make me reach for the lead overcoat...

http://www.w1vd.com/EME4.jpg

Extraneous traces are overload.

Jay

[WA1GFZ]

Cool,
I didn't get home from work until after 9:00 and crapped out early. I'll check it out tonight. Must have been some commie slop bucket jammer.

[WD8BIL]

Good copy here in Ohio also. Typical echo level was down 24-30 db.
During the 12th minute the echo reached a high of -4db from the propagated signal. Second hour was not as impressive. Echo never got higher -16dbc.

Doppler was not detectable by ear here.

[W3RSW]

OK on results you guys. Great fun! Looks like you didn't have much trouble. I Will try tonight but have a few setup questions.

First I'll be using the TR-7 after leaving on all day.
Set AVC for fast.  Too bad I don't have an 'off.'
Will use CW function (USB and simple audio filter) & 500hz filter.

Will set center of passband as close as I can to 6.7925 on 40 mtr. position and get pre-sets for ant. L net to wire antenna ahead of time.
Interesting that you got better sigs. on 6.7 rather than 7.4. Wonder if it was ionoshperic related (simple time of day and/or freq. of transmission/receiption?  Moon albedo (surface roughness/reflectivity/mineral components) related? Diff. in pwr. transmitted? Might be two diff. powers on each freq. to allow calibration by HAARP of all the users data being sent in.

I see you used QRSS viewer.  I'm using Spectran which allows audio file saves too. 

What sampling rate do you use?  11,025 is default on Spectrans. Seems to be plenty ok on a 500cps audio sig. Not much aliasing.

What resolution did you use? Default on Spectrans is 2.7 Hz.
How did you detect Doppler?  Audio shift by ear? Your QRSS viewer?

Not much of this seems critical but just wondered if any of this might be a better 'standard' if we're sending in results to HAARP.
Anything else you can think of?
Thanks,
Rick

[WA1GFZ]

I,m planning to use the SDR set up with A tight filter. I should be able to see and measure Doppler shift. I going to be on the air later so maybe we could get on 160 or 75 and hang out and compare notes. Sounds like an afternoon nap is in order.
I saw a graph on reflections only down 30 or so dB. Sounds like they could map under the surface of the moon with a little modulation

[WA1GFZ]

I saw the article but wonder if they are trying to look below the surface also.
When I lived in L.A. I worked on stuff to look inside a fetus. (very common today)
I wonder if a range gated long return pulse could provide more information. Sounds like very cool stuff.

[W1VD]

Rick

Haven't used Spectran much so can't comment on the setup. I use Argo (by I2PHD) and Spectrum Laboratory (by DL4YHF). SpecLab will run all popular sampling rates - I use 11025. Argo is not adjustable.

The second link in my post above shows the 'direct' signal above and the echo a bit more than 4 Hz below. Over the coarse of the first session I saw about 3 to 6 Hz of doppler. This is just a rough measurement due to the high waterfall speed to display the two signals.

The RX setup here is a Harris RF-590 referenced to a GPS disciplined oscillator - HP-Z3801A. The sound card sampling rates have been meticulously measured and accounted for yielding frequency accuracy here at least to .01 Hz - maybe better.

A key down period of 30 seconds or a minute would make it easy to get an accurate measurement on the doppler - not that knowing would serve a purpose...

Jay

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Cool stuff Jay. I may have to listen tonight.

Since the moon is made of cheese, it would follow that there are some hollow spots inside.

[WA1GFZ]

Yup, Swiss cheese just look at it

[AF9J]

Hmmmm,

If I'm not beat from a lack of sleep, maybe I'll listen.  EME signals always sound cool (well, at least they do on VHF & UHF).   Years ago, I used to listen off of the moon (if the condx. were just right) with the 20 element KLM yagi I owned at the time.  To say signals were weak, is being kind.  But, still very cool stuff.  Yeah, I doubt you'd hear much doppler from the moon on 7 MHz (much less libration fading).  Trivia factoid - the highest ham band EME has been done on is 47 GHz (the first EME QSO on that band was in April 2005).  Doppler was as high as 100 Khz.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[W3RSW]

Awaiting the magic hour.   not much left to wait now.

"Plunk your magic wand froggie!
Hiya kids, Hiya, Hiya."

Listened from 6:30UTC till 7:16 and nothing heard but s2 background, s7 static crashes and some intermittant line noise.  About 7:05 I heard definite CW but not anywhere near 2 seconds on, 3 off. And some BB station was fairly loud at 6790 so sidebands from that was splattering too on 92.5 also.
Still listening and will go to 7.4075 shortly.  -but it is really covered up with BC too.

[WA1GFZ]

Just a MCW signal off to the side so far here. Just came up to check freq. Just woke up and head not working yet...

[W3RSW]

OK got it at 74075 pretty much the whole hour.  40m settled down at high end.

Started weak and got a little stronger so that both main pulse and echo about 10cps removed received.  Lots of notes,screen shots and audio ; have to figure what I'll send to HAARP

[WA1GFZ]

I never heard them the first hour but got a signal most of the second hour on the higher frequency. Only got the return from the moon for about 5 minutes but the return was close to the noise floor so couldn't zero in on the shift. I could see it though. I  didn't run spectran but tried the flex version. I don't think I had it set up properly. Most of the time the main pulse was only 10 to 15 dB above the noise.
It appears last night was better conditions. I was using the 75 meter dipole.

[Opcom]

I listened to this session:
6.7925 MHz from 0630-0730 UTC

Using a 40FT wire 6FT above the ground, I still managed to hear 5 echoes (why make it easy?)

Of note, some hoaxter was transmitting a 'fake' echo a few times, but he was off freq (must be applicance operator), fooled no one.

Does anyone have audio recordings of the experiment?

[WA1GFZ]

Yea, I heard the fake and it was off a couple hundred hz.

[W1VD]

Listened only during the first hour. Signals down 15 to 20 dB over the previous night's best level - best results were with moon high in the sky. Echoes were consistently louder than 'direct' unlike the night before. Wish I had made an audio tape from the first night...



Jay

[W1VD]

Link to image in last post:

http://www.w1vd.com/EME5.gif

[W3RSW]

Tried to send audio but site said 18 sec. of wav. was 'file too large.' and dumped me.
- maybe I can get permission to send a couple later.  Or truncate them.- Will try off the downstairs computer at the shack later.
 
But at any rate, very weak signals in pretty much monotone. The 10 cps diff. doesn't sound too much different in audio tone.  About right, come to think of it when one octave,  "do to do," is a frequency doubling up or down.  i.e, for a tonic major chord,   "Do" is 0, "mi" is 1/4 octave up, "so" is 1/2 octave, and thence to the high "do" at twice the freq., heh, heh.
But visually, even with the small resolution on Spectran, the 10 cps clearly shows up between main pulse and echo. Way cool.

Jay , sorry you didn't work the last hour. That's when most of us finally hit pay. You sure had the best sig's. night before.  Then again, you probably realized you wouldn't have such good conditions regardless.

I also heard at least two interlopers on CW on the 6.79 sig.,  two separate pulses about 1/2 sec. long, not really qrm, but?   Nothing similar on the 7.4 sig. It started out pretty much dead, not even the BC stuff heard earlier in the night when I thought it was going to be worse than 6.79; turned out better.  What a thrill.

Well it was a lot of fun.
 

[WA1GFZ]

What were you guys using for antennas? I never heard the signal the first hour. There was a strong MCW signal off to the side. Second hour I saw the signal come out of the noise almost 40 dB a couple times and heard the echo. The noise floor chewed the signal most of the second hour. May have been the 75 meter dipole. I would think a horizontal loop may have been a better choice.

[W3RSW]

Here's the whole lashup.
and here's the compressed audio.

****************************************************

Richard S. Wilson, W3RSW
124 Maple Lake
Bridgeport, WV, 26330
Jan 20, 2008
wilsonmaple@msn.com
 
mbreport@haarp.alaska.edu
Dear Sirs:
 
Lat.   :39.29029 N
Long. :80.20702 W,  antenna center at Maple Lake located uphill, east of lake.
   Coordinates determined from NASA's Worldwind 1.4, "USGS digital ortho."
 
Confirming receipit of HAARP signals on 7.4075 Mhz above the local noise flooor from 7:40:38 UT to 8:30 UT, 01/20/08 with some intermittancy throughout.  No signals were heard from start of HAARP experiment at 7:30:00 UT to 7:40:30. A brief, very faint, long, but period indeterminate CW signal was heard at 7:39 UT about half a minute just prior to definite receiption.
 
No signals were detected above a high noise floor on 6.7925 from 6:30 to 7:30UT, 01/20/08.
I listened to the entire time window. Noted was an AM broadcast station during last half hour at 6.2790 with attendent carrier and sidebands. Also some CW traffic at about 15 wpm was noted very faintly very close to 6.7925. 
 
I'd listened to 7.4075 preliminarily at around 6:00 UT and found a lot of BC interference, storm hashes, etc. and was amazed that the noise floor dropped sufficiently to hear HAARP there later.
 
Data for 7.4075 window.
A wav. audio file captured at 8:20 +/-, UT is attached. Note audio just above noise floor.
"Spectrans" viewer screen shot (820 at 74050010)taken at 8:20  and "Spectrans" final screen shot (...012) taken at last two pulse/echos of experiment at 8:30 UT are also attached.  I noted a slight rise to the slope, perhaps 1 Hz? on several signals over two seconds.  Also noted, particularly in the stronger reflections was a definite 10 hz +/- doppler differential in main pulse vs. echo.
 
Receiver: Drake TR-7, CW mode, 500 Hz filter, AVC "fast" attack and delay.

Antenna: 1.03 wave, 42 mtrs. at 7.4075 Mhz, windom, tuned to 50 ohm rcv'r. port with "L" cap/coil network.  Main wire runs N 35 E.  Vertical lobes peaks broadly vertical about 8 db down from max. horizontal lobe.  Horiz. lobes peak in N 45 E direction, (not perpendicular to wire as in a one half wave antenna.)  Horiz. lobes peak +/- 20 deg. (3db down) in same N 45 E direction about 10 db above side lobes.  I can send a MMANA ant. plot if necessary. Probably "TMI" as it is, heh, heh. 
 
Viewer Software: Spectrans ver. 2, build 216.
 
Thank you for the opportunity of having all this fun.
 
Sincerely,
Rick Wilson, W3RSW
 
 
 8 20 at 74050010.jpg

 8 20 at 74050012.jpg