Tuning your "ears"The frequencies around 1420 MHz are especially interesting to look at because of their proximity to the "water hole." Also, because of the importance of this part of the spectrum to radio astronomy, by international agreement no one is allowed to produce any broadcasts between 1420 MHz and 1427 MHz. Because of this ban, it's an especially quiet part of the spectrum. Let's take a closer look at what this means.
What exactly are we looking for? As mentioned previously,
the most efficient way for an alien race to get noticed would be to concentrate
all the radio energy in a very narrow frequency signal. If your radio receiver
is "sloppy" and can only look at broad ranges of frequencies,
the narrow signal will get swamped by all the unwanted signals around it
-- even if that signal is very strong.
|
"SETI: The Radio Search" |
![]() |