September 2005 43
ince its emergence as a respectablescientific discipline nearly a halfcentury ago, the electromagneticSearch for Extra-Terrestrial Intelli-
gence (SETI) has been dominated bythree classes of practitioners: governmentagencies, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations surviving on a com-bination of private contributions andresearch grants. Recent technological ad-vances have brought a new group of play-ers into the SETI game—dedicatedamateurs with a personal passion forachieving interstellar contact.
This article explores the contributionssuch nonprofessionals are making toSETI science, in the realms of experimen-tal design, equipment construction, soft-ware development, direct observation,sky coverage, signal analysis and message
SETI:The Role of the
Dedicated Amateur
interpretation. Like the amateurathlete competing in an Olympiad, theamateur SETIzen can expect to strugglefor survival, absent commercial or insti-tutional sponsorship. Grassroots amateurefforts can nevertheless supplement theaccomplishments of the professionalSETI community, bringing us all closerto the day of Contact.
The SETI OlympiadThe challenge of interstellar contact,
no less elusive than the quest 50 years agoto break the four-minute mile, isdemanding of human skill and persever-ance. Unfortunately, success in this par-ticular arena is also a function of onesignificant factor beyond human control:the very existence, in the proper time-frame, of technologically advanced extra-
Dr Malcolm Raff, WA2UNP, assembles alow-noise microwave preamplifier at aSETI League Hardware Workshop.
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligenceis moving forward on a number of fronts,
thanks in large part to amateurs whovolunteer their time and expertise.
S
Dr H. Paul Shuch, N6TX
A roomful ofinterestedamateursshare insightsand ideas atone ofThe SETILeague’sannualSETIConTechnicalSymposia.
terrestrial beings. Given that no humaneffort can impact this particular factor,what can we do to maximize our chancesfor SETI success?
For a brief time (admittedly a mereeyeblink in human history), the govern-ments of planet Earth threw their prestigeand fiscal resources at the SETI problem,sponsoring any number of scientificsearches. But it is amateurs who havemade, and continue to make, the most sig-nificant strides toward contact.
An amateur, as defined by science andthe Olympics Committee alike, is onewho strives to excel without financialcompensation. The motivation of the ama-teur is revealed by the Latin root of theword: an amateur works for love.
Ask any contemporary SETI scientistor technologist why he or she strivesagainst incredible odds. The answer is al-ways the same. What modest salary he orshe may draw is almost incidental. Anyskilled SETIzen could always make moremoney by diverting the requisite effort ina different direction. It is indeed for thelove of the game that the best and thebrightest choose to compete in the SETIOlympiad.
The AthletesNot all SETI pioneers are licensed ra-
dio amateurs (though those I will discusshere are, or were). Not all of the workdescribed here was pursued as a strictlyamateur endeavor (though some of itwas). What these SETI players share isthe spirit of amateurism that marks theirscience as being of truly Olympian stat-ure. These representative examples, by nomeans inclusive, show how the world’sdedicated radio amateurs competed, andcontinue to compete, for SETI glory.
Grote Reber, W9GFZWhen the Father of the Radio Tele-
scope (SK, December 20, 2002) built theworld’s first modern radio telescope in1937, a 10-meter-diameter parabolic re-
Reprinted with permission; copyright ARRL.
44 September 2005
flector in the backyard of his mother’shouse in Wheaton, Illinois, he was work-ing strictly as an amateur, and under theauthority of his ham radio license. Groteproduced the first radio map of the MilkyWay Galaxy, though it took years for hisamateur accomplishments to gain accep-tance from the world’s astrophysics pro-fessionals. His subsequent low-frequencyradio astronomy research from Tasmaniacontinued in the amateur tradition of in-dependent research for its own sake.Never one to shy away from controversy,Reber’s last published paper was titled“The Big Bang is Bunk!”
Phil Morrison, W8FISUndeniably one of the patriarchs of
SETI, Professor Morrison had long sincegone inactive on the ham bands when in1959 he coauthored the first serious sci-entific SETI paper. His boyhood interestin Amateur Radio had motivated his in-terest in exploring the feasibility of mi-crowaves for interstellar communication.During SETI’s Golden Age he has in-spired a whole generation of engineersand scientists. On a personal note, my ownSETI interests were motivated by follow-ing in Phil Morrison’s footsteps (albeitfrom a distance of 30 years). As an EEundergraduate at the Carnegie Institute ofTechnology, I had the privilege of oper-ating W3NKI, the campus ham radio sta-tion he had founded three decades prior.
John Kraus, W8JKArguably the most creative antenna
designer of his generation, Kraus (SK,July 18, 2004) is best remembered for thelate Big Ear radio telescope that he de-signed and built at Ohio State University.Big Ear conducted the longest runningcontinuous SETI sky survey in history.
Dr John Kraus, W8JK, was an inspiringteacher, prolific author, prominentantenna designer and one of the fathersof modern radio astronomy.
SETI League members use a variety of digital signal processingsoftware tools to examine candidate signals in the time andfrequency domains.
SETI League member Marcus Leach, VE3MDL, built his ownsoftware-controlled receiver for wideband SETI scanning.
COURTESY VE3MDL
John Kraus’ grad student Bob Dixon,W8ERD, succeeded him as Director ofthe OSU Radio Observatory. Dixon isnow leading a team of dedicated amateursin the design of the omnidirectional Argusradio telescope.
Paul Horowitz, W1HFAStill active on the Amateur Radio
bands, a passion he has pursued sincechildhood, Horowitz heads HarvardUniversity’s SETI efforts, and designedthe Project META and BETA searchesfunded in part by the Planetary Society.He is the author of the world’s most popu-lar Electronics Engineering undergradu-ate textbook. Lately he has been turninghis interests and expertise toward Opti-cal SETI.
Kent Cullers, WA6TWXA world-class leader in digital signal
processing, Cullers is better known to the
public as Kent Clark, the character basedupon him in the popular film Contact. Thefirst (and probably still the only) blind in-dividual to earn a PhD in the highly vi-sual discipline of astronomy, Kentdeveloped the signal detection algorithmsfor the late NASA SETI program, andlater for The SETI Institute’s Project Phoe-nix targeted search. If he has seen fartherthan other men, it is because Kent Cull-ers stands on the shoulders of some veryclever code.
Seth Shostak, N6UDKSeth’s face is familiar on television,
and his voice a fixture on broadcast ra-dio, in his professional role as public pro-grams scientist for the SETI Institute. Thatvoice is less often heard on the ham radiobands, but it is there that Shostak firstgained exposure to the technologies heroutinely exploits as a senior SETI scien-tist. He encouraged The SETI League inthe construction and testing of its W2ETIMicrowave Moonbounce CalibrationBeacon, and was the first radio amateurto detect its weak signals reflected off thelunar surface (albeit with the 305-meter-diameter Arecibo Radio Telescope).
Richard Factor, WA2IKLIf SETI is truly the science that refuses
to die, that is due in large part to this NewJersey industrialist. An active ham sinceboyhood, Factor was dismayed at Congres-sional cancellation in 1993 of the NASASETI program. Then, putting his moneywhere his mouth is, he founded the non-profit SETI League, to involve the world’sradio amateurs in privatizing the search.Though not as active as he would like to bein Amateur Radio astronomy, Factor’sgreatest contribution has been his leader-ship role as SETI League president and pri-mary source of financial support. He canclaim much of the credit for the 126 Ama-teur Radio telescopes that SETI Leaguemembers now operate all over the world.
September 2005 45
The Organizing CommitteeFounded by Richard Factor in 1994 as
a response to the demise of the NASASETI program, The SETI League, Inc isa grassroots Amateur Radio club of glo-bal scope and galactic span. It coordinatesthe SETI activities of 1450 experiment-ers in 66 countries on six continents. Itsmembers design hardware and softwarefor a coordinated all-sky survey, publisharticles, conduct conferences, constructand operate equipment, and collectivelycontrol more radio telescopes than existin the rest of the world, combined.Funded entirely by membership dues andindividual contributions, The SETILeague currently has no paid employees,with all its functions being performed byvolunteers.
The SETI League’s main medium ofcommunications is its extensive Webpresence (see www.setileague.org),along with half a dozen specialized e-maildiscussion lists, whereby members canpursue a variety of collaborative projects.The organization also publishes ContactIn Context, an on-line peer-reviewed sci-entific journal, and provides Webmasterservices for the SETI Permanent StudyGroup of the International Academy ofAstronautics—all on an operating budgetof just a few thousand dollars per year. Inaddition to their scientific and engineer-ing activities, SETI League members areinvolved in publicizing and popularizingSETI, having conducted hundreds ofmedia interviews and having appeared indozens of television documentaries.
The backbone of The SETI League isits Field Organization, a cadre of 65volunteer Regional Coordinators aroundthe world, who offer their expertise andassistance to SETI enthusiasts, whetherSETI League members or not.
The EventsSETI amateurs are challenged by and
involved in a number of technologicalpursuits. A brief sampling:
The DiscusThe antenna of choice for amateur
backyard radio astronomy is the discardedC-band home satellite TV dish. These 3to 5-meter-diameter parabolic reflectorsexhibit in excess of +30 dBi of gain inthe Waterhole spectrum between 1.4 and1.7 GHz, and provide modest resolutionwith their 2 to 4° beamwidths. They cangenerally be had for the asking in com-munities where TVRO technology hasbeen replaced by digital Direct BroadcastSatellite television distribution. Severalhundred Amateur Radio telescopes arealready on-line or under constructionaround the world, using just such anten-
The SETI Horn of Plenty, a waveguidehorn antenna for 1.3 to 1.7 GHz designedby the author, has been duplicated bydozens of SETI League members aroundthe world, for classroom demonstrationsas well as observational radio astronomyand SETI.
Tommy Henderson, WD5AGO, showsoff two horn antennas used for radioastronomy. The larger of the two (on anaz-el mount) is optimized for 1.4 GHzhydrogen line observations. Tommy isholding a smaller horn for 5.7 GHzmethanol line measurements.
nas as their basis. A suitable L-bandfeedhorn can be readily fabricated out ofhardware store materials and tin snips byany experimenter reasonably skilled insheetmetal working techniques.
The 21 cm Closed CircuitOnce those L-band photons falling
from the sky have been captured by asuitable antenna, it remains for the dedi-cated amateur to amplify, filter and pro-
cess them in a suitable microwave re-ceiver. Amateur Radio astronomers havemodified military and government surplusequipment, employed commercial receiv-ers produced for the ham radio and tele-communications markets, and, morerecently, designed their own dedicatedSETI receivers from scratch. Every yearat its SETICon Technical Symposium,The SETI League hosts a microwave cir-cuit construction workshop, to train itsmembers in the skills necessary to pro-duce a workable hydrogen line receiver.
The BinathalonThe output of the typical microwave
receiver is analog baseband, generally inthe audio range. This signal is convertedto a string of binary digits for signal analy-sis, often in a personal computer soundcard. More advanced analog to digitalconversion at a receiver’s intermediate fre-quency stages is recently becoming a pre-ferred method of preparing the receiver’sanalog output for digital signal process-ing (DSP). Amateur Radio astronomersare working on the next generation ofDSP hardware, software and algorithms,to ferret out the hallmarks of artificialityburied in receiver and cosmic noise.
Synchronized ScanningWith over 100 Amateur Radio tele-
scopes now engaged in a coordinated all-sky survey, it is necessary to efficientlyallocate the search space among partici-pants, in terms of sky coverage, frequencyspectrum, and time. A major challenge forThe SETI League has been to developmeans of ensuring maximum spectral andsky coverage, with minimal overlap, con-strained by the equipment capability andlocation of each individual participatingstation. Real-time coordination via theInternet turns a hundred individual instru-ments into a zeroth-order interferometerof impressive capabilities. Still, the chal-lenge remains to automate the coordina-tion process, especially as more stationsare added, growing the Project Argus skysurvey toward its eventual goal of 5000participating Amateur Radio telescopesand real-time all-sky coverage.
The Broadband JumpThe typical commercial communica-
tions receiver has an instantaneous band-width on the order of a few kilohertz.Given the enormity of the spectral spaceacross which valid ETI signals are likelyto be dispersed, the time factor to analyzea reasonable portion of spectrum is inor-dinate. New receiver designs are needed,which can process and digitize hundredsof kilohertz, or preferably many mega-hertz, of bandwidth in real time. SETI
46 September 2005
Dual quad-helix arrays for 1296 MHz,one right-hand and the other left-handcircularly polarized, are part of The SETILeague’s W2ETI Moonbounce CalibrationBeacon.
The SETI@home project run by the University of California,Berkeley, though not a SETI League initiative, has stimulatedthe interest of SETI supporters around the world. SETI Leaguemembers are among the several million users who lend theirspare computer cycles to the analysis of archival data from theArecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
COURTESY N6TX
League members have recently been ap-plying new components designed for thewireless telecommunications industry tothe challenge of seeking out narrow-bandemissions across broad chunks of theelectromagnetic spectrum.
The High-Frequency HurdlesAlthough there is a certain romance
associated with searching for ETI acrossthe traditional Waterhole frequenciesspanning the spectral emission lines ofneutral hydrogen and hydroxyl (the dis-association products of water), four de-cades of SETI in this portion of L-bandhave thus far failed to produce positiveresults. The higher frequency reaches ofthe electromagnetic spectrum are a ripearea for SETI exploration, and a numberof Amateur Radio astronomers are nowequipping themselves to monitor acrossS, C, X and Ku bands, and in some casesclear into the millimeter waves. It is axi-omatic that, whereas there are interestingmagic frequencies to be explored, thereare no wrong frequencies for SETI re-search. The current push toward everhigher frequency coverage can be ex-pected to continue, with Amateur Radioastronomers “searching where no man hassearched before.”
The 500 nm DashOptical SETI, though proposed as
early as the 1960s, is only now beginningto be regarded as a serious and potentiallyproductive branch of SETI science. Ama-teurs have pioneered the search for high-energy pulses in the visible and infraredspectra, helping that pursuit to gain legiti-macy among SETI professionals. As aca-demic institutions and governments beginto invest resources in Optical SETI, they
SETI League members gathered last year at the StarkenburgObservatory in Heppenheim, Germany, for the EuroSETI04Conference. The SETI League has sponsored meetings aroundthe world, to encourage collaboration and cooperation amongits more than 1400 members in 66 countries.
can turn to the more experienced and nu-merous amateur optical astronomers forguidance.
The Pole VaultWith hundreds of Amateur Radio tele-
scopes at work around the world, acommonly available calibration and vali-dation means became a necessity. Fouryears ago The SETI League constructedits Lunar Reflective Calibration Beacon,a continuously operated transmitter,locked to an atomic frequency standard,and driving antennas that track the moonunder computer control. Microwave sig-nals reflected off the Moon can be re-ceived by amateur and professional radiotelescopes alike, any time the Moon isabove the horizon at the transmit and thereceive location simultaneously.
These weak but stable moonbouncesignals, at a frequency adjacent to thosefor which most Amateur Radio telescopesnormally operate, enable the experimenter
to verify the proper operation of his orher equipment. To date the W2ETI bea-con (identified by the assigned call signof The SETI League’s AmateurRadio club station) has been used as a testsource by the Arecibo Radio Observatory,at the Bernard Lovell Telescope in JodrellBank, United Kingdom, and by a hand-ful of Project Argus stations around theworld. We hope it will become the cali-bration standard for all Amateur Radioastronomers observing in L-band.
The 5 Million CPU RelayThe SETI@home project run by the
University of California, Berkeley, is un-doubtedly the world’s most successful dis-tributed computing experiment, thougharguably its most dubious SETI experi-ment. The strength of this well-knownproject lies in its 5 million participants,all crunching data from the SERENDIPreceiver at Arecibo, the world’s most sen-sitive radio telescope. The weakness isthat all 5 million users are crunching datafrom the same sensitive radio telescope.Where is the weak link in this chain?
Nevertheless, SETI@home has donemore to raise public consciousness aboutSETI than any other project, and SETILeague members are eager and active par-ticipants. The project has demonstratedhow a large-scale task can be brokendown into manageable chunks, andparsed out to a cadre of participants. Whatremains now is to marry the distributedprocessing aspects of SETI@home to thedistributed observing network of TheSETI League’s Project Argus all-sky sur-vey. The result will be the most powerfulSETI project ever, a net stretched wideto capture that elusive fish in the cosmicpond.
September 2005 47
A mere 46 days after his momentousaccomplishment, Bannister’s record wasbeaten by another distinguished amateur,his Australian rival John Landy (later thegovernor-general of Victoria). Since then,nearly a thousand runners have turnedsub-four-minute miles. Similarly, once thefirst substantiated evidence of ETI is pre-sented, we expect others to strive for stillmore news of our cosmic companions.Just as aviation activities did not ceaseonce Lindbergh had flown the Atlantic,we expect that first SETI success to beonly a beginning. Whether that first de-tection is made by an amateur or a pro-fessional, one can expect numerousamateurs to contribute to the efforts thatfollow.
On the 50th anniversary of his mostfamous run, Bannister told an interviewer,“the race taught us we could do mostthings we turned our minds to in later life.And it made us friends.”
One can ask no more of SETI success.
1P. Shuch, “The Very Small Array,” QST, Sep2002, pp 28-30.
The Uneven Parallel BarsIn 2001 the SETI Institute started the
design of the One Hectare Telescope(1HT), a dedicated SETI array of unprec-edented sensitivity. Later renamed theAllen Telescope Array (ATA) in honor ofa major contributor, this instrument is nowunder construction at the University ofCalifornia’s Hat Creek Observatoryfacility, at a projected cost in the tens ofmillions of dollars.
At around the same time, The SETILeague, Inc began work on its VerySmall Array (VSA), a significantly moremodest SETI array of much more limitedperformance, but budgeted at mere tensof thousands of dollars.1 The ironic par-allel between these two disparate projectsis that, at present, each is funded at a levelof about a third of its ultimate cost. Thus,the leading professional and the leadingamateur SETI organization both findthemselves in the position of having toexpend a significant fraction of theirscarce resources on fund-raising, to com-plete the construction of their respectivenext-generation SETI instruments.
The Future of the SportAs public and private funding for SETI
science continues to wane, its greatestuntapped resource is the dedicated ama-teur. Thousands of Amateur Radio enthu-siasts, and millions of personal computerusers around the world, promise to theSETI enterprise more observing and ana-lytical power than had ever been imag-ined in the days of government-sponsoredSETI. The challenge facing us is to focustheir energies and coordinate their activi-ties in the most efficient way. This is thecharter of The SETI League Inc, and thedirection that other organizations willlikely take to ensure the survival of SETIas a respectable science.
ConclusionsIn his biography The First Four Min-
utes, Sir Roger Bannister writes that, uponcompleting the first four-minute mile,“pain overtook me. I felt like an explodedflashlight with no will to live.” One canonly speculate as to whether SETI suc-cess will be as draining. I expect elationto dominate the mood of those detectingthe first valid signal, but only after theweeks or months of follow-up verifica-tion activities which responsible sciencedemands. In the athletic Olympiad, suc-cess is immediately evident at the finishline. In the scientific arena, definitive re-sults take a little longer.
ReferencesBannister, Sir Roger. The First Four Minutes,
50th Anniversary Edition, Sutton Publishing,Gloucestershire, UK, 2004.
McRae, Donald, “Interview, Sir Roger Bannis-ter,” The Guardian, April 26, 2004.
Shuch, H. Paul, “2001: A Moonbounce Odys-sey,” QST, Nov 2001, pp 38-43.
Shuch, H. Paul, “One Hundred Up, 4900 togo!” 51st International Astronautical Con-gress Preprints, IAF, Oct 2000.
Shuch, H. Paul, “The Only Game in Town,Journal of Futures Studies (Taiwan), Feb2004, pp 55-60.
Photos by the author.
Dr H. Paul Shuch, N6TX, serves as vol-unteer Executive Director of The SETILeague, Inc. A long-term engineering pro-fessor credited with designing the first com-mercial home-satellite TV receiver, he isthe author of more than 400 publications,has received numerous honors and awardsand (as N6TX) has operated in 20 hambands between 1.8 MHz and 24 GHz. Youcan reach the author c/o The SETI LeagueInc, PO Box 555, Little Ferry, NJ 07643;[email protected].
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