Sounds right ER.

For my own SETI station (www.SETI.Net) I went through the same set of logic and decided that a deliberate beacon was not only the most logical thing to look for it was the only thing that we would be able to hear given the huge distances involved.

A bit more logic - I assume that a beacon would be sent from the planet ET is on directly to the star that ET would like to invite to the conversation. This conserves energy and makes the best use of the ET transmitter. I also assume that unless a beacon is trained directly on our star we will not hear it. We may hear a beacon if ET trains on a star directly between our star and ET but otherwise we would not hear this very directional signal.

I also assume that ET might send his beacon on each star for an average of one year to allow time for the remote search systems to find the beacon. Now there are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way so if we just missed a beacon it would not be back around for another 400 billion years. ON THE OTHER HAND – It may be that ET has just finished up a star and we are next on his list. Since we don’t know which is true we might as well assume that we are next and start listening.

Anyone that thinks that 50 years should be enough time just has not thought about it enough.

It won’t be easy that’s for sure.

P.S. We should start our own beacon ASAP