A signal bounced off of Venus

I am an amateur radio operator (a ham) I know this has nothing to do with SEO or web marketing but I thought it was cool. Man can achieve many things if he puts his or her mind to it and this is a historic event for hams:

EVE ! - Radio Amateurs bounce a signal off Venus

Radio Amateurs have achieved the very first reception of amateur signals bounced off the planet Venus, over 50 million km away - EVE (Earth-Venus-Earth)

Peter Guelzow DB2OS, President of AMSAT-DL has provided a description of this landmark achievement.

On March 25th, 2009 a team from the German space organisation AMSAT-DL reached another milestone on its way to an own interplanetary probe towards planet Mars.

The ground station at the Bochum observatory transmitted radio signals to Venus. After travelling almost 100 million kilometers and a round trip delay of about 5 minutes, they were clearly received as echoes from the surface of Venus.

Receiving these planetary echoes is a first for Germany and Europe. In addition, this is the farthest distance crossed by radio amateurs, over 100 times further than echoes from the moon (EME reflections).

For receiving the EVE signals, an FFT analysis with an integration time of 5 minutes was used. After integrating for 2 minutes only, the reflected signals were clearly visible in the display. Despite the bad weather, signals from Venus could be detected from 1038UT until the planet reached the local horizon.

The 2.4 GHz high power amplifier used for this achievement is described in the current AMSAT-DL journal.
This represented a crucial test for a final key component of the planned P5-A Mars mission. By receiving echoes from Venus, the ground and command station for the Mars probe has been cleared for operational use and the AMSAT team is now gearing up for building the P5-A space probe.

For financing the actual construction and launch, AMSAT-DL is currently
in negotiation with the DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) amongst others, to obtain financial support for the remaining budget of 20 Mil Euros.

AMSAT-DL wants to show that low-cost interplanetary exploration is possible with its approach.

More information and the link to the official press release [in German]:
http://www.amsat-dl.org//index.php?o...=166&Itemid=97

The EVE experiment was repeated on Thursday, March 26th for several hours with good echoes from Venus. Morse code was used to transmit the well known “HI“ signature known from the AMSAT OSCAR satellites.

Is Google following the same path as E-Bay?

Interesting...This article snippit is possibly warning that Google might be facing an uncertain future. I think they are trying to be too much to too many people.

By Chris Crum - Fri, 03/20/2009 - 12:06 4 comments
Many eBay users will be very quick to point out that they feel eBay has lost its luster (to put it mildly). Some think Google could find itself on a similar path. BusinessWeek is running an article basically warning Google to avoid such a fate. I think Google has a long way to go before it has to worry about getting to an eBay-type status.

Do you want to pay for on line news?

I think this survey is a bit stretching it but the future of print newspapers is clouding up as many big newspapers fail. The only business plan that seems to work is a pay to read one. I believe a free on-line section with paid ads would be a much better one!

By Mike Sachoff - Thu, 03/19/2009 - 14:44 1 comment
A new report suggests some consumers may be willing to pay for online news content. J.D. Power and Associates has released a report "Online Commentary Indicates Consumer Willingness to Pay For Online News" which is based on a survey of blogs and message board postings.

An undo e-mail button for G-Mail?

I like this!!

By Mike Sachoff - Fri, 03/20/2009 - 09:20 4 comments
Google has added a new feature in Gmail Labs that allows users to retrieve email messages. A new Undo Send button will hold an email for five seconds after the user clicks send. Google says the purpose of this feature is to allow users to recall emails that were sent to the wrong person, have the wrong subject heading or are missing a file attachment.

Skype launches a beta service for business

I use Skype and I like it and recommend it. This service works.

By Mike Sachoff - Mon, 03/23/2009 - 10:58
Skype has announced a beta version of its calling service for business users. The new service, called Skype for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) allows workers to make calls with traditional telephones, instead of a headset hooked up to a computer.

Facebook redesign a flop? Maybe

One million voters so far and almost 95% do not like the new Facebook redesign. Yikes I hope they go back to the drawing board.

Craigs List is growing in use?

I use Craig's list a lot, it is easy to use and it is free. I have gotten results and that is why I think this next info item is happening:

Heather Dougherty writes, "U.S. searches on the term 'craigslist' have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared with the same week last year." Meanwhile, queries for 'myspace' decreased by 7 percent during the same period.