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Open-source communications by bouncing signals off the Moon

cactacea

Expected array gain: ~39.3 dBi / EIRP: ~63.1 dBW

Tx power: 1 W per antenna

Yeah... so free space path loss at legal frequencies for hams this thing can transmit on is ~283dB. Neat idea but consider me skeptical. Having said that I can see some interesting applications for this kind of gear, EME seems overly optimistic though.

jacquesm

A few hundred Watt at a minimum would be my first guess.

cactacea

Yeah that is what is used for moonbounce today (if not full legal power - 1500W for US amateurs) but these little panels won't put out anything remotely close to that. Hence my skepticism.

gus_massa

I started reading thinking it was impossible but it has been done with other devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Moon%E2%80%93Ear...

cactacea

Not impossible, just extremely difficult. I'm a ham and getting some contacts over moonbounce is a personal goal of mine. Historically this kind of thing has required some pretty large antenna arrays and very high power though:

https://hamradio.engineering/eme-moonbounce-bouncing-signals...

http://www.g4ztr.co.uk/app/download/13284489/RaCcom_Feb14+EM...

http://www.g4ztr.co.uk/app/download/13300096/Radcom_Mar144+E...

amelius

Latency?

_bernd

1 sec up and 1 sec down... more or less. Speed of light and distance to the moon, two times.... roughly.