Have you read McConnell's Beyond Contact?
This thread may find this book of use:
Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating
A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations
By Brian McConnell
First Edition March 2001
ISBN: 0-596-00037-5
432 pages
In Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations, author Brian McConnell examines the science and technology behind the search for intelligent life in space, from the physics of inter-stellar laser and radio communication to information theory and linguistics. If you've ever wondered whether it really would be possible to communicate with other civilizations, you'll want to read this book.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/alien/index.html
