Long Delay Radio Echos

I have had the same thing happen to me also back in early seventy's and I was on the chicken band with a Wilson twelve element laser 400.
I never knew this echo or what ever it is was so common.

 

Physics suggest the only thing that would adequately explain such a long 40 second delay to occur in a radio transmission is physical distance.

Since that sort of physical distance is highly unlikely to even exist here on Earth, it seems that sort of calculated distance would have to exist in the regions of outer space.

Would it be reasonable to agree a 40 second LDE = 3.7 million mile signal path?

I don't mean to oversimplify, but my question is, what is physically located 3.7 million miles away from Earth that can adequately provide the required distance to accommodate such a 40 second time delay?

The only thing I can think of is an ionized plasma cloud. The kind that is the result of a CME event. (Which did occur.. mere coincidence?)

Quote:

"Such clouds are enormous in size (spanning millions of miles) and are made up of magnetized plasma gases, so hot that hydrogen atoms are ionized."

Quote Source: http://yubanet.com/scitech/Scientists-unlock-the-secrets-of-exploding-plasma-clouds-on-the-sun.php

Thoughts?

 

I have heard of such things. From what I've read, it is a type of ducting. It doesn't have to be linear. That might explain the 45 second delay.There's no telling what path it took or how deep the duct was.
Is this the same fellow from up there that claimed this on 75 meters 2 or 3 years ago?
You know much more than me. What is your opinion?

 

I also experienced one LDE. It was not in amateur radio.

To set it up. Our site was keying simultaneously three transmitters. One was on 10 mhz, one on 13, and I think one was on 6 mhz. All were running only moderate power, about 2500 watts.

The transmitters were keyed for just about one minute, together. Then they stopped keying and there was a one minute 'speaker monitor' period. However, we were not always at the console, but might be in other areas of the room. There were only two of us on duty.

Shortly after the transmitters were unkeyed, perhaps 20 seconds, I heard someone calling us. The call did not last long, maybe 10-12 seconds.

To describe it, it was our keying. It was no hoax. This was government radio in a foreign country, on government frequencies. It was our speed, our keying pattern, and our call sign.

Since I was away from the console, I could not tell which of the three receivers actually received the signal.

But I can tell you, there was no fading, no fade in, no fade out. It was suddenly there, and it was strong, and then it was suddenly gone. Like a switch being turned on and then off.

I believed at that moment it was a field station calling in. So I stopped our automatic keyer and sent QRZ on the frequencies (all are keyed at once.) After a couple of attempts, I realized no one was calling us. I went back to normal monitoring.

The echo transmission included perhaps three repetitions of my call sign, and a few additional letters, and then it was gone. Maybe have been only two repetitions.

The signal was strong. No way to guess how strong.

Sometime after that I saw an article in QST where Stanford University was investigating LDEs I sent them my story. They thanked me, and that was the end of that.

I have no answer. My guess is some sort of atmopheric ducting. Picture a vacuum hose moving across the floor. It sucks up the signal, and the signal is radiated back out again. Only by now the hose has moved far away from the place it found the signal. That narrow duct may go around the world many times before, purely by coincidence, it passes by the same place it first heard it. That could be seconds or minutes. It would have to be some sort of phenomena we don't yet understand, and it doesn't occur frequently enough, and under controlled circumstances, so it is nearly impossible to explore. Only when we find a means to duplicate them will we begin to understand them.

Since they are HF, they are not going to propagate millions of miles into space and then come back as strong as when they left. HF does not have that capability. So it is something that is holding the signal close to the earth, then sending it back to ground.

I doubt we'll have an answer soon.

Ed

 

They don't exist. This is the same stuff as UFO's. Millions upon millions of people say they have seen UFO's and of those millions there are millions of cameras especially now with cell phones, and never any real images except some out of focus lights in the sky.

No parts or pieces of alien spacecraft found anywhere (very clean aliens) and no alien poop. Then you have the ones who have actually seen these spacecraft land, and those are never filmed, not even a still image. Wonder why?

So there you have it, the ones far away in the sky, are just blobs of light and those "Verified" landings, never any images. Who's kidding who here?

LDE's? No such thing.

K2WH

 

UFO I keep an open mind when dealing with things well beyond my comprehension.

I will stand flat footed and call those that hear one a liar after someone shows me definitively what/who made this Universe and what actually makes it "tick".

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I for one do KNOW that mankind knows just enough about this Universe to be dangerous. Maybe, just maybe, mankind will avoid war, disease, and self destruction long enough to actually unlock the treasure chest of what this soup really is.

Dave
K4JDN

 

Well said Dave!

As far as LDE's and DK6NP I believe the story to be credible. Disregard the nay sayers (especially the ones that have 6,000+ posts) Just because we don't understand, doesn't mean it's not real!)

 

May be the answer is in some of the previous responses.

A huge dark piece of matter is coming slowly towards the earth.

What's happening is, we are the hearing echos bouncing off this
object as it approaches the Earth.

 

CW LDE? Too Easy to Hoax, Guys...

 

A Quiet little corner...

Dave,

The universe is a cauldron of exploding, violent interactions, where stars are temporary phenomena and destruction is the rule. We just happen to live on a rare, and lucky, pale blue dot with sanguinuity on the skin of the earth--at least for one brief moment. Cherish it, but don't look up in the sky for serenity;-)

73,
Chip W1YW

 

Same thing happened to me about 6 months ago.

I had the same experience about 6 months ago.
I sent out my call on 40M calling CQ DX etc. and within about 30-40 seconds I heard my own voice come back with about a 45 signal. I thought it was someone playing a trick and playing back my own transmission or possibly some sort of wierd signal bounce that went around the planet a few hundred times.
So I sent a few short blurbs out with unkeying and pauses and sure enough they also came back in 30-40 seconds! This event lasted about 3 or 4 minutes then it stopped and at that point I changed freq till I heard a South American station talking to another SA station about 20kc up. Funny thing was everything that one of them said was echoed back about 20 seconds later, most times doubling over with his current transmission which was still in progress! This lasted about 2 minutes and then it just stopped.

I have no idea what was happening and I just figured it was some sort of wierd propagation.

 

Occams razor says it is bored orbiting aliens messing with our heads.

73s - Rob.

 

Very Cool LDE!!!

I've only read and heard about LDE's and hope some day to experience it. There's also another suggested theory as to why LDE's occur.

Is it possible that certain magnetic storms create another layer of ionosphere that we're not aware of that traps our transmissions allowing it to bounce frequently within this layer?

I've read that this may be a plausible reason for LDE's and can answer why the return echo's are so loud, or strong after the assumed travel distance of the transmission and why it's so strong on return. Maybe it really hasn't traveled so far as one thinks.

73!

 

Greetings All...

During the winter of 2000, I was calling CQ on 80 meters. I always use full-break-in, and I no sooner started calling CQ than I heard my call coming back to me. I stopped, and the 'reply' stopped. I called 'QRZ?", and the same "QRZ?" came back to me. Thinking I may be the victim of a prank, I sent my wife's first name suddenly. It came back to me, too. I then realized I was hearing my first (and so far ONLY!) LDE.

The phenomena lasted for about 45 minutes.

73

Steve, K4YZ

 

multi-path

I wonder if a relatively weak echo, having a multi-path return, would cause a parabolic effect for the sending station. This might account for other's inability to hear them.