Hearing myself respond to my Call

Although I have never heard my own signals come back I did hear echos on most of the participants of a large 20 meter roundtable some years ago. Some of the stations had one echo some had 2 discernable echos. One station reported that he could not hear any echos. The operators was asking other ops to please turn off their echo boxes This lasted for about 8 minutes.

Another interesting thing, I was hearing stations in the roundtable within 50 - 150 miles of my QTH which is a bit unusual for 20 meter propogation. I think it was in 1969 at the peak of a rather weak sunspot maximum.

Whatever it is it seems to happen mainly around 14 mHz. As others have mentioned, there have been reports of this dating back almost to the dawn of radio. QST had some excellent articles about it in the 60s and 70s and I think 73 Magazine had some also.

These things make life interesting!

73
George
K3UD

 

Once again for those not paying attention.

If the delay is 10 seconds, then the distance the signal has traveled MUST be about 1.8 million miles. (180,000 mi/sec X 10 sec).

However, if the signal reflected off an object, then the object must have been about 900,000 miles away. (5 seconds/900,000 miles out and then 5 seconds/900,000 miles back)

Or, mabey, if geometry was perfect, it reflected off Two seperate objects, like the moon (2.5 seconds) and some other object (add another 7.5 seconds or 1,350,000 miles)


QUESTION: What object is both 900,000 (and/or 1,350,000 miles away) AND big enough to reflect enough signal that you would be able to hear?


ANSWER:
a) a previously undiscovered planet or moon;
b) an alien spacecraft;
c) ailens replaying your signial to get your attention; or
d) a and b above;
e) some joker.

If you choose a, b, c, or d, we NEED to call NASA, NORAD and Dell (Dude, your'e getting a Dell&#33

If you choose e) then you have figured out what most of us have decided, namely, jokers abound on HF.

 

There have been many reports of professional broadcast being received well over 20 years from the date of the broadcast. They were on the original frequency, but with phasing noise and other signal degredation. Hoax or not, I don't know, but some of these reports were supposed to be from reliable sources.

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (W9WHE @ Oct. 24 2002,09:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">QUESTION: What object is both 900,000 (and/or 1,350,000 miles away) AND big enough to reflect enough signal that you would be able to hear?


ANSWER:
a) a previously undiscovered planet or moon;
b) an alien spacecraft;
c) ailens replaying your signial to get your attention; or
d) a and b above;
e) some joker.

If you choose a, b, c, or d, we NEED to call NASA, NORAD and Dell (Dude, your'e getting a Dell!)

If you choose e) then you have figured out what most of us have decided, namely, jokers abound on HF.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
What about some type of matter that has been ejected by the Sun and is radio reflective like the ionosphere. (Can a CME do that?) It would be MUCH more refective than something like the moon. It may not be easily detectable using UHF/Microwave RADAR, but could be detected with something like the Wood Pecker (Over the horizon RADAR).

I know, it is pure speculation, but the fact remains that this has been documented long before digital recorders were avaliable.

 

Rob W8YRB may be right that IT is a LID NOW.BUT what WAS IT
in past decades BEFORE PC sound cards,Tape recorders ( analog
or digital ). This subject might end up on the Art Bell show before
long ( if it has not already done so ).

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (W5KRM @ Oct. 23 2002,10:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If it isn't some lid playing around with you, then it could quite possibly be what is referred to as an LDE (Long Delayed Echo).  It is a fascinating topic.  QST has had numerous articles on it in the past. You might look them up or try the internet and read up on this occurrence.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
In this case it was probably LDE "Lid Digital Emission". Todays radios that have Digital Recording make it an easy thing to record your call and play it back for you. Unfortunate for the person playing it back, that this is a serious violation. Perhaps someone never progressed from the cracker jack box to the FCC license. Listen around this weekend during the contest, you will hear a bunch of the LDE stuff going on. Best thing to do when you hear yourself coming back is to stop transmitting and listen for a minute or two. If you hear yourself again, then it is Lid Digital Emission. I have heard this many times in the last 3 years. When it happens to me, I usually give a signal report of 59 and call QRZ again. Doesn't take long for the LDE to move on to someone else.

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (k3pd @ Oct. 25 2002,13:00)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (W5KRM @ Oct. 23 2002,10:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If it isn't some lid playing around with you, then it could quite possibly be what is referred to as an LDE (Long Delayed Echo).  It is a fascinating topic.  QST has had numerous articles on it in the past. You might look them up or try the internet and read up on this occurrence.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
In this case it was probably LDE "Lid Digital Emission". Todays radios that have Digital Recording make it an easy thing to record your call and play it back for you. Unfortunate for the person playing it back, that this is a serious violation. Perhaps someone never progressed from the cracker jack box to the FCC license. Listen around this weekend during the contest, you will hear a bunch of the LDE stuff going on. Best thing to do when you hear yourself coming back is to stop transmitting and listen for a minute or two. If you hear yourself again, then it is Lid Digital Emission. I have heard this many times in the last 3 years. When it happens to me, I usually give a signal report of 59 and call QRZ again. Doesn't take long for the LDE to move on to someone else.  [/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Quite possible the signal is being reflected from Uranus

 

no long delayed echo's here, its just that moron over in jersey that gets his kicks doing this on 20m. next time it happens make a post to the dxcluster and try to get a fix on him. his days are numbered

 

Since numerous folk here can't comprehend that life existed before digital voice communications, and before they themselves got into ham radio, trying to say something occurred sixty years ago makes no sense to them. And since their only knowledge of radio is ham radio (or CB) they can't believe anything occurred on other than on the ham bands.

Consequently, I have decided to reveal the real source of the LDEs, and put an end to the speculation entirely. It's really very simple. It is radio waves bouncing off the peanut butter and jelly sandwich in Elvis' mouth, as he orbits the planet on a velvet guitar. Wop-bop-a-loo-bop, wham- blam- boom.

'nuff said from this end.

73 to all, and to all a good night

Ed

 

Many years ago, I was licensed as WA8CAL and heard someone calling CQ de WA8CAL... So I answered him and for some unexplainable reason he went QRT... Can you imagine that?

J. VY1JA

 

LOL

How about when you hear someone one come over the air with your call sign? I have heard it twice, and have heard my father and a friend's call sign used as well. All seem to be the same person. Mind you, the guy won't answer back of course.

You guys every have that happen, and did you ever track down the culprit?

73s

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (G3SEA @ Oct. 23 2002,16:18)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

Dave WA2DXQ has a point but there are probably only one or two pranksters out there doing this BUT
how does this explain the numerous historical instances of this phenomena with delay durations of MINUTES
long before modern recorders and SSB were even thought of

Like many mysteries there is more to this than meets the eye [/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
The problem with LDE is there is not a scratch of credible physical proof of any of it. What people "think" they hear and what actually is there may be quite different.
As far as low power HF radio signals, which all amateur signals are, traveling millions of miles and being returned is rubbish. If you would posulate a time/space warp, i.e. somehow signals being advanced or retraded in time/space, that might do the trick. At least there you've not an inverse square law to deal wit.

 

You know, this topic has certainly sparked debate. As a casual observer and ham, I would like to point out that some of the responses have an air of smugness and ham radio arrogance!  I often see this type of attitude reflected from those who have the latest gear and the 80' tower.  

I'm also surprised by the arbitrary use of the word "Lid" in some responses. Having been a radioman for 12 years in the Coast Guard, we often recognized the fact that users of this term were often NOT the best radio operators and thinly masked their own incompetence by verbal hammering of other less experienced operators.

The bottom line is, this phenomenon is nothing new and has been recorded long before the availability of playback recorders to the general public.  Why does this occur, who knows?  I certainly do not.  

My elmer spoke of this a few times.  I was very fascinated by it.  He was a great ham.  He had forgotten more about this hobby than most will learn.  One thing that I've noticed about the modern ham operator is not so much that they can't send or recieve code but the close mindedness to radio in general.  It seems more important to the new generation of hams to have the biggest and best signal money can buy commerically.  

The biggest and best signal has always been a hams endeavor but the generation before us learned how to build, tweak, and maintain their gear to accomplish it.  No more, you just call a catalogue store and order it, in the process learning nothing about the "art" of ham radio.

I, for one, believe that this gentleman experienced something out of the norm.  A "not an everyday" event.  Remember, radio is theory and not law.  In theory anything applies until proven otherwise.

 

I'm surprised no one seems to have checked the 'net for other citations
of this phenomenon. A quick Google search using "long delayed echo"
turned up 76 references.

I have experienced this once, back in the late '50's as a novice on 15M.
My echo came back with a delay of well under a second, so the long path/
ducting explanation makes sense here. Strictly a one-time event.

For longer echoes, consider the Trojan points. These are places where
the gravitational pull of the earth and moon (and the sun?) result in a
gravitational "trap". Objects that wander into this zone wind up orbiting
the sun with the earth. The various Trojan points are called L1, L2, etc.
with L3 being the most famous. In "The High Frontier" (whose author I
forget) it was proposed that space settlements could be placed there.
It is conceivable that, over the millenia, reflective material could have
accumulated. An echo from this region would probable be on the order of
1-3 seconds.

Finally, the late Dr. Bracewell (a respected space scientist) has conjectured
the following scenario: You are an advanced race and looking for other
intelligent life in the universe. So you select likely places and leave
an orbiting device. Until a race evolves and develops radio, you are not
interested in them. Finally, the race comes up with radio and starts
transmitting. The orbiting device hears the incoming signals and then
acts as a repeater, re-broadcasting the signal. The subject race hears
this stuff and figures out that there is no natural phenomenon that will
explain this, so ... must be something out there. Contact!

Far fetched? Well, suppose you have determined that life is most likely
to evolve near certain type of stars (G2 in our case) with planets in
a Continuously Habitable Zone (like ours), and you find out (as we are
finding out nowadays) that there are an enormous number of candidates
out there. Assuming Einstein is correct, there's no way you're going to
visit many (or any) of them. Robotic devices to monitor these planets
are orders of magnitude cheaper. The use of "trip wire" monitors is a
very common solution in problems where you don't know where the answer
will come from or when.

This begs the question of how long you're willing to wait, and whether
your civilization will be around long enough for the answer (this is one
of the big unknowns in the Drake Equation).

I don't discount lids, and I'm sure the are some of these jokers out
there. However, as others have pointed out, this phenomenon goes back
long before the technology to screw around would have been commonly
available (at least the '20's).

This is the sort of stuff that keeps me interested in radio.

73 all

Larry K2KVS

 

Long Path Phenon.....lucky you!
Andrew
N7XQY