VOYAGER 1 Signal Received by AMSAT-DL Group

Anonymous Coward writes " Space probe VOYAGER 1 successfully received. On March 31st, 2006 an AMSAT-DL /IUZ team received a signal from the American space probe VOYAGER 1 with the 20 m antenna in Bochum. The distance was 14.7 billion km. This is a new record for AMSAT-DL and IUZ Bochum. The received signal was clearly identified through means of doppler shift and position in the sky. The receive frequency was exactly measured and compared with the information provided by NASA. This distance equals approximately 98 times the distance between Earth and Sun. VOYAGER 1 is the most distant object ever built by mankind. This again proves the superior performance of the Bochum antenna. Most probably this is the first time Voyager 1 has been received by radio amateurs. VOYAGER 1 was launched on 5. September 1977 by NASA. It transmitted the first close-up pictures of Jupiter and Saturn. In 2004 VOYAGER 1 passed the Termination Shock Region, where the solar wind mixes with interstellar gas. VOYAGER 1 today is still active, measuring the interstellar magnetic field. The following radio amateurs were involved: Freddy de Guchteneire, ON6UG James Miller, G3RUH Hartmut Paesler, DL1YDD Achim Vollhardt, DH2VA/HB9DUN Special thanks to Thilo Elsner, DJ5YM of the IUZ Bochum, Roger Ludwig of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena USA and the Deep Space Network Tracking Station in Madrid, Spain for their cooperation. "

Comments

Decoded message

[LiquidCoooled]

Message contents:
I AM V'GER, YOU ARE NOT TRUE LIFE FORMS.
I will remove the infestation on the Creator's planet.

Mr Sulu, Brown alert, we're gonna need some new uniforms.

Re:Decoded message

[cnettel]

You carbon-based bags of water bastards!

Re:Decoded message

[Black Parrot]

> I AM V'GER, YOU ARE NOT TRUE LIFE FORMS.

You'd think V'GER would get along fine with beings named ON6UG, G3RUH, DL1YDD, DH2VA/HB9DUN, and DJ5YM of the IUZ Bochum.

Re:Decoded message

[jeffy210]

Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

QSL Card

[geoffeg]

Wow, I'd love to have that QSL card! :)

Light Time

[Detritus]

That's about 13.6 hours at the speed of light, compared to a bit over 8 minutes to get from the Sun to the Earth.

Receiving anything at that distance is a very impressive feat. There are so many things that have to work near-perfectly to detect such a weak signal.

Field Day

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

If they send a signal back out to Voyager now, will they be able to count it for bonus points on this year's Field Day?

Excellent!

[cephalien]

This is really exciting for me as a space buff, but bittersweet at the same time.

It's great to know that something launched before I was born (1980), can still be found and active.. but at the same time, where is the spirit NASA used to have? These days it always seems about money & more money, while they whine and complain about the ever present-flaws in the space shuttle.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do everything possible to keep our astronauts safe, but if they hadn't contracted the shuttle out to the lowest bidder in the first place, we might have better craft.

I wonder how much it would cost to launch a few more Voyager-like probes?

Re:Excellent!

[LiquidCoooled]

I found a link about the timing of the mission.
From the article:

About every 175 years, the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are aligned geometrically in such a way as to minimize the trip time and energy required to tour all four. In 1965, Gary Flandro, who was at JPL at the time, pointed out that the next such opportunity would occur in 1976, 1977, and 1978 and designed some Grand Tour gravity-assist trajectories that included an Earth-Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune mission.

Re:Excellent!

[oni]

but at the same time, where is the spirit NASA used to have?

Well, I understand what you're getting at, but I just want to point out that the Cassini mission to Saturn was at least as important scientifically as Voyager's flyby. Cassini has already returned many hundreds of times more data about just Saturn, than both Voyagers returned from all the planets combined.

When you and I were born, no human being in the history of our species had ever seen the surface of Titan. Now, thanks to Cassini (and the lander which I cannot spell), we have.

Don't you think that's amazing? Don't you think that is in the highest spirit of NASA?

And what about the many Mars rovers and orbiters? I think you need to step back and think about how totally cool it is that we have machine rolling around on an alien planet.

And what about the Galileo mission to Jupiter? I know that one had some problems but still, it was cool.

And we have the New Horizons mission on its way to Pluto. Think about how cool that is! No human being today can tell you what the surface of Pluto looks like. Aren't you curious? I am! One day soon, thanks to NASA, we'll know.

And one day (unless congress cancels it) we'll have the ion-engine powered JIMO mission to orbit Europa. How cool is that??

Please don't sell NASA short. In the Apollo days, NASA's budget was like 1% of the GDP. It was like what we're spending in Iraq. All that, just going to NASA! Their budget hasn't gone up with inflation, it's gone way down.

Re:Excellent!

[Vellmont]

but at the same time, where is the spirit NASA used to have?


Did it go somewhere? I really don't understand this attitude at all. Nasa currently still has TWO robots roaming around Mars, just successfully deployed another orbiter around Mars, landed a probe (along with the ESA) on Titan, returned material from both a comet and interstellar space, returned material from the Sun (even though it smashed into the desert), and tentatively proved yet another prediction of general relativity (frame dragging). That's all happened within the last couple years!

I'd say the spirit of NASA is more alive than it's ever been!

What really worries me is what it'll be like in another 5 years if all these budget cuts and diverting funds away from science missions keeps happening.

Standing Ovation

[thegrassyknowl]

Actually, I'd like to shake their hands. Receiving such a weak signal as a radio amateur proves that there is still a lot of life in the hobby. Kudos to the guys!!!

PS. The message said "All of your Voyager are belong to us"

Don't build 'em like that anymore

[Professor_UNIX]

Thank God for clean efficient nuclear power. If these had been solar powered we would've lost contact a long time ago.

Re:Don't build 'em like that anymore

[Waffle Iron]

Thank God for clean efficient nuclear power.

The RTG generators used in these probes are neither clean nor efficient. That's not really an issue in deep space, though.

BTW, they still build 'em like that. The Pluto probe launched this year has one.

Re:Don't build 'em like that anymore

[clintp]

It wasn't always that far from Earth. Rumor has it that at one time it was actually *on* the planet. It's hard for the tree huggers to believe that we've built a nuclear power source that's functioned flawlessly for 30 years, but it's true.