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Surfin’: Radio Ghosts Revisited

10/26/2012

By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor

Ghosts and Halloween go together, but what about ghosts and radios?

Last week’s episode of Surfin’ -- An Extremely Long Delayed Echo -- revealed that a famous long delayed echo (LDE) was actually a hoax. But what about other LDEs? Are they real and if so, what causes them?

LDEs are a fascinating subject and the responses I received to last week’s Surfin’ indicate that readers find LDEs interesting, too. So here I go again.

Writing about LDEs in the past, I referred you to Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, at the University of Oslo, who is also fascinated by those radio echoes. The original “Radio Ghosts” episode of Surfin’ that appeared here nine years ago sparked Sverre’s interest in LDEs. Since that time, he researched the subject and came up with “The Five Most Likely Explanations for Long Delayed Echoes” and “15 Possible Explanations for Long Delayed Echoes”.

Volker Grassmann, DF5AI, breaches the subject of LDEs on his website with his “About ‘ghost echoes’ and the ‘Radio Flying Saucer’ effect.” The webpage includes links to articles that Volker wrote about LDEs.

Gabriel Sampol, EA6VQ, was so fascinated by a discussion on the Moon-Net reflector about LDEs on Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) signals that he put all the messages together on this page.

If you would like to hear an LDE, YouTube has a large selection of LDE-related videos that you can view.

Until next time, keep on surfin’! ...keep on surfin’! ...keep on surfin’!

Editor’s note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, seeks the unusual in radio. To contact Stan, send e-mail or add comments to the WA1LOU blog.

 



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