Directional beaming & beaconing to emerging civs

Space/Science » in reply to re: Who says that ETI will use radio signals?

Directional beaming & beaconing to emerging civs

p — 12/17/2004 3:08:08 PM (archived)

First, the RF leakage detection is a red herring. Our radio scopes are orders of magnitude too insenstitive to detect it and SETI is NOT about looking for leakage.

SETI makes the grand assumption that folks BEAM signals to candidate stars (long lived, stable stars) in a DELIBERATE attempt to contact emerging civilizations. That means they don't use exotic technologies. This as everyone knows one hell of an assumption.

As to beaming, tight beam lasers offer a much more easily detected signal with good SNR vs radio. A single alien laser transmitter could send contact oriented nanosecond pulse trains to several hundred stars per "day" in serial fashion. The human search strategy is to use a large # of relatively small telescopes (large amateur scopes with CCD detectors qualify) watching the same stars.

Of course all of this is moot if there are zero other technical civilizations, as I suspect is the case.

The whole thread (30 posts)

Is it time to scrap SETI? Of course not! - LJK - 12/16/2004 4:47:52 PM
- SETI has a foolish perspective - Eric - 12/17/2004 12:42:09 AM
  - Since we only have a dataset of one known civilization... - Larry J - 12/17/2004 4:19:04 AM
  - re: SETI has a foolish perspective - LJK - 12/17/2004 2:05:34 AM
    - Oh, I can't resist.... - Gary - 12/17/2004 4:48:05 PM
      - Kardashev Type Civilizations - LJK - 12/17/2004 5:13:02 PM
        
        Interesting that none of them use nuclear power. - Tom Brosz - 12/18/2004 5:16:23 PM
        
        re: Interesting that none of them use nuclear power. - LJK - 12/18/2004 5:25:30 PM
        
        Kaku is a charlatan - Gary - 12/18/2004 7:00:00 AM
        
        How could he... - Adam - 12/19/2004 11:00:19 PM
        
        Believe it or not: There are physicists who are scumbags - Gary - 12/20/2004 1:40:24 AM
        
        re: Kaku is a charlatan - LJK - 12/18/2004 4:36:16 PM
        
        My model on civilization types - Gary - 12/18/2004 8:15:48 PM
        
        re: My model on civilization types - Jesse - 7/11/2005 10:05:45 AM
    - re: SETI has a foolish perspective - DWC - 12/17/2004 6:52:22 AM
- re: Is it time to scrap SETI? Of course not! - Arthur Smith - 12/16/2004 5:39:32 PM
  - How big does a radio telescope have to be? - Gary - 12/16/2004 6:59:47 PM
    - As far as detecting accidental messages - alcaray - 12/16/2004 9:12:44 PM
      - Very true - we live in a noisy RF environment - Larry J - 12/16/2004 9:56:47 PM
    - re: How big does a radio telescope have to be? - Larry J - 12/16/2004 7:24:35 PM
      - If the ETI are advanced enough, they won't need RF - LJK - 12/16/2004 10:53:43 PM
      - not directly beamed - Arthur Smith - 12/16/2004 9:07:28 PM
        
        re: not directly beamed - Larry J - 12/16/2004 9:49:56 PM
        
        re: not directly beamed - Arthur Smith - 12/19/2004 3:53:47 AM
        
        Escaping the energy limit - Nick Hoffman - 12/20/2004 3:33:22 AM
        
        Who says that ETI will use radio signals? - LJK - 12/16/2004 10:57:51 PM
        
        re: Who says that ETI will use radio signals? - Larry J - 12/17/2004 4:12:30 AM
        
        re: Who says that ETI will use radio signals? - LJK - 12/17/2004 1:05:07 PM
        
        Directional beaming & beaconing to emerging civs - p - 12/17/2004 3:08:08 PM
        
        As you might have guessed, I have thought about this topic - R.L. - 12/18/2004 8:43:26 AM

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