Radio signals from space?

[ChrisC]

I was digging through some of the various electronic gear I've collected over the years and I came across my radio scanner. It receives from about 29 to 960mhz. Are there any signals being sent from space that I can pick up? I find the very concept of receiving a signal interesting, so I'm not concerned about whether it's scrambled noises or intelligible dialog. I thought I actually had a list of space frequencies at one point, but I can't seem to find anything like that in my papers. Anyone have links or experience? Am I imagining things?

 

[FaisonMars]

I was digging through some of the various electronic gear I've collected over the years and I came across my radio scanner. It receives from about 29 to 960mhz. Are there any signals being sent from space that I can pick up? I find the very concept of receiving a signal interesting, so I'm not concerned about whether it's scrambled noises or intelligible dialog. I thought I actually had a list of space frequencies at one point, but I can't seem to find anything like that in my papers. Anyone have links or experience? Am I imagining things?

With a big enough antenna, you should be able to pick up storms in Jupiter's magnetosphere at the lower freqencies, and maybe strong solar flares.

Google "radio jove" and "Society of Radio Astronomy Amateurs" for more information.

 

[firecoins]

I get the Mars' K105's morning radio show, Zeke and the crazy warthog. It happens to be the Red planet's top morning drive show.

 

[Lisa Simpson]

I hate that show. The warthog is sooooooo annoying.

 

[Buckaroo]

You might also get some cool whistlers and sferics at the longer wavelengths, with a good antenna. Though you could argue that they're produced by the Earth, not space, since they originate in the magnetosphere...

*ETA -- I just noticed your range, which on reflection I think might be too high for what I'm talking about. you'd probably need frequencies in the kHz region.

 

[Jimbo07]

It receives from about 29 to 960mhz. Are there any signals being sent from space that I can pick up?

1420 MHz, if you're looking for little green men...

 

[Schneibster]

You'd need a fairly directional antenna, but you should be able to pick up several pulsars. I'd think a helical or a dish, though you might be able to get enough front-to-back ratio to get decent gain with a linear phased-array of Yagis. IIRC, that (the phased array) was how the first ones were found. At first they thought they might be LGMs (Little Green Men) but when they were able to associate them with some of the more spectacular nebulae it became eventually obvious that they were stellar remnants; Einstein called his experience of understanding the final association of pulsars with neutron stars, driven by Chandrasekhar's derivation of the mechanics that had to apply from GRT, "shuddering before the beautiful."

The center of the Milky Way galaxy is also pretty loud, an area called Sagittarius A West; it is, of course, in Sagittarius, so you'd need to be within about 40 degrees of the equator to have it get high enough to be out of the "grass." It's visible in the late spring and summer.

 

[kalen]

Maybe ChrisC was thinking about satellite signals a la Sputnik?

 

[Solitaire]

With any luck you could pick up a Numbers Station.

 

[FaisonMars]

You'd need a fairly directional antenna, but you should be able to pick up several pulsars.

Pulsars are very tough for amateur radio astronomers... they are not very bright and they are extremely small, so they don't fill up the beam. You need some sophisticated equipment to be able to subtract the "off" signal from the "on" signal and detect the pulsar.

 

[Schneibster]

Maybe my memory is failing me. Looks like you're right- Jansky discovered Sagittarius A West in 1931/32, the first major mapping of the sky was in 1940, and pulsars were not discovered until 1967.

 

[ChrisC]

Thanks for all the replies. I should have clarified in the OP that I was leaning more towards man-made signals if only because I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that they'd be easier to pick up with the gear I have. The Radio JOVE project looks cool, though.
I've learned a little about radio astronomy, so this thread has certainly been useful so far.

Thanks again.

 

[Verde]

Thanks for all the replies. I should have clarified in the OP that I was leaning more towards man-made signals if only because I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that they'd be easier to pick up with the gear I have. The Radio JOVE project looks cool, though.
I've learned a little about radio astronomy, so this thread has certainly been useful so far.

Take a look at www.amsat.org
There is information there about a number of ham radio satellites in LEO (low-earth-orbit). Some send data, others repeat terrestrial voice signals. There is even a ham station on the International Space Station.

The common frequencies are a bit below 146MHz and above 435MHz, so your scanner should work just fine, although you will probably need an outdoor antenna. There are online resources available to predict when the satellites will be in range of your location.

Good luck!