Saturday, January 19, 2008

HAARP HF Earth-Moon-Earth Echoes!

The HAARP project in Alaska has been transmitting 3.9 megawatt carrier in the direction of the moon, so that a receiving site in another location can take data on the lunar surface (and just below) by analyzing the echoes received.

HF lunar echoes are not the kind of thing one hears every day. THIS is DX.

On the second night of the test, January 20 UTC, echoes were received here in California on the second frequency (7407.5 kHz CW) for a considerable period around 0740-0800 UTC. Here is a typical spectrogram as received on a PAR End-Fedz wire and plotted with Spectrum Lab:



The HAARP carrier is being keyed down for 2 seconds (and received here via the ionosphere) and then a 3-second silence is provided to listen for the delayed (and slightly Doppler shifted, apparently) lunar echoes. The HAARP (ionosphere) reception is at 40, 45, 50, 55, and 00 sec. The echoes are clearly seen in between, down about 10-15 dB.


More on this EME experiment is here.