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Ham Hears Mars Orbiter 45 Million Miles From Earth
Richard L. James writes "As reported on the Mars-net email list Flight Refuelling Amateur Radio Society's resident satcom + WLAN guru Paul J. Marsh (M0EYT) has managed to detect and receive NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on
X band at a staggering range of 45 million miles from Earth using a home made receiver setup and a RFspace SDR-14 software radio."
...how soon can I get this sort of range/reliability for my home Wifi?
I am Spartacus
and here I can't get a decent fucking picture from DirecTV.
"Can you hear me now?"
We better start encrypting our space chats or the aliens will surely hear us.
802.11s (space) anyone?
Orbiter: "Beep beep beep bo beep" Base station: "Da deet da da deet deet da"
Fuck NASA. I'm moving my laptop and AP to NASA's spectrum. I can't even get this shit to go 100 feet and they're going 46 million miles.
Jesus fucking christ! What link do they want me to click?! My slashdot honed senses are confused by the lack of more then one link in the article summary!!!
:)
Oh, wait, nevermind, since when did I read articles? Crisis averted!
Less than ten minutes on slashdot, and the site is already overwhelmed.
So, how long will it take for this guy to be reprimanded for space war driving of satellites ?
I bet he's getting high-fives and beers from all his geeky friends. ... I wish I were one of those friends. ;)
"The right to do something does not mean doing it is right." William Safire
Just goes to show that brains and determination are more important than money.
..and eggs, too...
So what? This guy's basicly just taking his work home for fun. Yeah, he tinkered and built one on his own, but he should be able to if he's the NASA expert on it.
Someone save me from this sanity.
How many of you remember the articles in QST and Ham Radio from the 1970's about the ham radio operators that received and decoded the pulse-coded modulation transmissions directly from the moon during the Apollo missions? Yeah, I think we really did go there.
This new feat comes on the heels of the success of ham radio in Louisiana. I've been licensed since high school in the early 1970's. These new-fangled computers are nice and convenient, but nothing beats ham radio! It works where nothing else will.
Ray
The article doesn't mention how he also needed a Uranium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator
It's nice having so many links embedded in the summary, but which one links to where it's actually reported ? I'd expect a link on the "reported" word.....
Can somebody point me the correct HREF to click on ?
:-)
You made your point dude, you're good at linking sites to your posts...
RedVortex
because that's one helluva Pringle's can. Defcon contests, you're over.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Nerd realises he will never get a girlfriend
Spock: Pardon me, Doctor, I am hearing many many calls of Distress.
Bones: Yes. I'm sure you are.
"Though your point is still mute"
Its so mute I can hardly hear it.
http://www.dictionary.com/ is your friend.
A mirror. Another awesome article ruined by the slashdot effect.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
n/t
Which freakin' link do I click for the actual article?
The problem with this layout is that there's too much shit to click on. Seriously, who's ever going to click on all those links? The worst blogs are the ones that make every other word a hyperlink to another website so by the time you finish reading this sentence, you've forgotten what you were reading, or why you were reading it in the first place. Hey, this article is great but you know what would make it better? If I could read another article in the middle of it. Great design, morons.
The guy, a human being with clothes and bad breath and pimples as a kid and all of those things that level the playing field for all of us, is communicating with something 45 million miles away!
Even the most boring, predictable, well-funded case of this occurring should be celebrated with what is left of the adverturer in you.
"So what". Puh! Why exactly are you at Slashdot then?
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Gonna need a lot fo postage on that QSL Card....
HTML Href junkies ...
Rule 2: Writing a spec is like writing code for a brain to execute.
Cheese Discovers Secrets to Life, and The Grand Unification Theory?
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Can you hear me now?
This space intentionally left blank.
I think this is great. It shows what's possible, even without a huge budget. I wish I could read more about it, but the sites have all been slashDOSed.
But just because they guy isn't paid to do this, and didn't spend a million dollars on the equipment, doesn't mean that anyone can do it -- setups like these are tricky. I imagine he had ot capture a lot of data, and use some really powerful computer for signal processing.
Now, if he can send signals BACK to mars, and have them interpreted by beings or equipment there, I'd be even further impressed.
I'd like to claim that this is a victory for ham radio. In a way it is, as it is a radio accomplishment and the fellow is not paid for this. But as it doesn't involve any transmission, it's more of an SWL (ShortWave Listener) accomplishment than an Amateur Radio accomplishment.
is the direct digital converter some magic piece of hardware, or is it just a FFT on samples?
If it was a ham who got the transmission, I'm sure he was keep an eye to make sure the satellite wasn't txing in the ham bands. (Source: http://www.hamsexy.com/ )
I'd love to hear some of that stuff.
Too bad there is no link to send data to the Mars Orbiter.. We could of slashdoted the orbiter too...
Pigs' hearing is *that* good?
As with most things in life, the correct answer is "it depends". All NASA communcations to/from the shuttle are NOT necessarily encrypted but can be. Uplink from the ground to the shuttle always is encrypted (we don't want someone sending bogus commands). In addition, the crew has the option of disabling all commands coming from the ground. Direct downlink from the shuttle to the ground can be encrypted but that is not always done. It depends on the mission configuration. DOD-based classified missions back in the 80s always were encrypted on both the uplink and downlink.
There are also other communications paths between the shuttle and the ground. Indirect communications, known as forward and return links via, TDRSS are always encrypted.
If we're broadcasting a signal so strong that some random dude can pick it up at home with homemade equipment, isn't that an unnecessary amount of power being wasted on transmissions? I don't know about the actual power consumption, but seriously, when your launch costs are in terms of millions (if not billions) of dollars, you shouldn't have this sort of ineffeciency.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
...Zonk has put in a strong late entry for the coveted "most links in a single slashdot submission" prize for 2005.
I have always wondered,what type of commmunication is to communicate with far far away missions like Hubble? How does the signal reach earth?When signals are travelling through millions of miles through space ,wont it weaken to nothing?
Why does yahoo do this
/. mods are a joke. The comment is funny, take off your brown shirt and mod it that way.
will be reached when ham-black-hat-hackers start taking over
space probes. Who will be the first to hack the rovers?
C'mon, go for it. Prove for us the bulk of humanity sucks.
-t
I've heard Shuttle flight air-ground comms before. Didn't sound encrypted to me.
Someone got a little crazy with the links. Why not link the work "reported" to the actual message or story describing it, and then put all the other useless nonsense in. I had to open 5 goddamn windows before I found what I was looking for.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
In Soviet Russia the orbiter hears you. oh..wait...hmmm
Maybe this is why they keep searching for water on Mars? Those crazy scientists and their hijinks.
I for one welcome our Mars Orbiter hearing pig overlords!
So can I configure this thing with my browser yet by hitting an IP like my router? I think I want to turn on WEP.
Did anyone else read that title as:
"Ham Nears Mars Orbit 45 Million Miles From Earth"
I thought it was going to a story about Piiiigs in Spaaaaace!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The following text is from this article Amateur station hears MRO at 45 million miles on the southgate ARC website:
Amateur station hears MRO at 45 million miles
This week the Mars-Net e-mail list reported that Paul Marsh, an amateur observer, has detected Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at X band at a range of 45 million miles from Earth.
The MRO transmits on Deep Space Network channel 32 which is 8439.444444 MHz.
By the time that reaches Earth, due to doppler the frequency has dropped to around 8439.031 MHz. The MRO has a 3 meter diameter dish antenna driven by a 100 Watt X-band TWTA to transmit signals to Earth. The signal coming in our direction is of the order of 4.2 mega watts of RF.
The signal was clearly visible in the FFT display of an SDR-14 software radio, and was just audible in SSB bandwidth of a communications receiver. The signal was consistently about 6 to 8 dB above the noise floor.
More details can seen at:
http://www.uhf-satcom.com/mro/
Thanks to Joe, KM1P, the Mars-net list, and
Uhf-satcom.com for the above information
It is really no big deal, really, given the power that is being transmitted by the spacecraft. In fact, JPL has been having trouble calibrating the power received from the spacecraft because it is saturating the Deep Space Network antennas. MRO is not to Mars yet, and even after it gets there it is going to have a lot more power than Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Exploration Rovers, or Mars Odyssey ever had.
website mirror of uhf-satcom
"Jimmy, How many times have I told you not to contact strangers from other planets!"
Table-ized A.I.
Slashdot is a public forum where everything is dicussed in far too much depth and 90% of it is pointless
Oooooh, if only you had spelled "grammar" correctly. That would have been sweet.
Working on the (alleged by some) premise that we never went to the moon - how do we know that NASA isn't pumping out a fake, weak signal from a research lab just to fool us!!? I won't believe it until we get some triangulation on that signal!
AT&ROFLMAO
*** uhf-satcom.com website MIRROR HERE ***
quite a funny thread we have here lol
something else funny
he ho goes to bed with a scratchy ass wakes up with a poopy finger
The New Horizons probe to Pluto launches next month. The latest news has the probe launching between January 17 (a six-day delay from the original plan, due to a fuel tank problem) and February 14.
As Paul Marsh did here detecting the MRO on its way to Mars, one of the benefits of setting up the receiving system while the probe is outbound is that the signal starts out strong, so your first-generation system can be somewhat crude. As the signal weakens (over the years in the New Horizons case), you can gradually refine your setup (and perhaps count on new technology to be developed in the meantime).
BTW, for those interested in the technical details of telecommunications with NASA deep space probes, a good place to start is the Future Missions Planning Office site. It contains communication link design tools, HTML links to applicable CCSDS standards, etc.
I had assumed that the copper tubes were for feeding liquid nitrogen or something similar to keep the GAASFET parametric amp cool and keep the heat noise down. But according to the article, they are actually the waveguides. Not bad. Home Depot could use this for advertising.
This is just another reason why amateur radio still matters.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Was the antenna in a Spiral or was it flat and Deli thin?
Oh, and I'll bet all he could hear was 'The Cure'.
I'm very very sorry. I'm such a ha... never mind.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
How long until this guy receives more than the Mars orbiter signal...a visit from FBI? I give it 14 days, tops.
zing!
This sounds like a really great feat. Hmm that FFT looks a bit like what SETI says you don't want to get right? Well it's fabulous stuff and I wish I had a ham radio. Two dumb questions from an astronomy fan.
1. Sol sends out microwaves too. If you were carrying a dish like in the photo and tilted it accidentally up at the sun, and happened to have a hand near the return at its focus, would you get burned or at least start feeling a rise in temperature? And would the other guy start hearing some kind of shrieking?
2. Always wondered if you could approximate the power of something like this but using a fresnel analogue, maybe concentric circular wires or better yet tin foil in varying strips, to do very low cost backyard radio astronomy. Possible? Dangerous?
Thanks for someone knowledgeable answering these perhaps silly questions, the second about which I've wondered for some time.
Perhaps he heard the War of the Worlds invasion countdown like the Jeff Goldbloom character in Indpendence Day :-)
You must be one of those New Fangled Heliocentrists! FOOL! Everyone knows the earth does not move!
It's full of links!!
They've already intercepted 5 transmissions they believe to be terrorist in nature.
I fucking love this thread! MOD PARENT ETC UP!!!
Broadband over power lines can interfere with ham signals, so everyone tells us. Probably just the folks in Texas just emailing a jpeg of a space probe picture.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Reference to...
:D
"All your Base are belong to us..."?
There is no need for encrypting the data to/from anything non-military in space, for example but not limited to the Hubble Space Observatory or all the interplanetary probes or sattellites like the Mars Global Surveyor. All that data could AND SHOULD be in plain text. The only thing to worry about is signing command and data packets to and from the devices so that nobody can trash them.
I get pretty weird ideas when I hear that the comms between Earth and the Mars rover is fully encrypted. That's where I start wondering, what is it out in space trillions of miles away from here that I am not supposed to see (at least not right away)??!?!?!