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LONG-DELAY ECHOES A Mysterious Radio Phenomenon by Frank Simonsen © 2006 the findings of Jorgen Hals. Using the following day they again sent signals for high-power transmitters at their disposal, _ the first 10 minutes of every half-hour. they radiated "call signs" at 30-second These signals were sent in Morse code for intervals on the night of 11 October 1928 every 30 seconds on 25 metres or 12,000 on 31.4 metres or 9,554 kilohertz. The kilohertz wavelength. Special results they got indicated delays of between considerations were made to make it easier three and 15 seconds. This gave validity to to identify and time the signals. the observations of Jorgen Hals. Apparently, large numbers of echoes In a telegram that was sent back to were heard. These were divided into two Stérmer and reproduced in his submission groups: weak echoes, about 1/100th the to Nature, van der Pol noted: "Last night original signal strength, and strong ones, special emission gave echoes here varying about one-third to one-fifth the intensity of between 3 and 15 seconds. 50 per cent of _ the original signal strength. There was no echoes heard after 8 seconds." noticeable relationship between signal At the end of his studies of the — strength and delay time. phenomenon, Stérmer published his In their report, Galle and Talon said the findings in August 1929 and attributed the echoes stopped altogether during the cause of the LDE phenomenon to be __ totality of the eclipse, but in fact the echoes "auroral in nature". paused for three-and-a-half minutes before In May 1929, France sent an expedition the eclipse became total and began again to French Indo-China (now Vietnam) to halfway through it. Delay times ranged study an eclipse of the Sun. G. Talon, from one second to 30 seconds, although captain of the vessel L'Inconstant, and J.B. two 31-second echoes and one of 32 Galle were given orders specifically to seconds were heard between 3:40 and 4:00 study the effect of the solar eclipse on radio _ o'clock on the day of the eclipse. One- and propagation, particularly the LDE _ two-second echoes might seem impossible phenomenon. They used a 500-watt for a probe in the Moon's orbit unless there transmitter for this purpose. With another were some highly unusual circumstances. vessel, La Pérouse, they set sailfrom (Some were attributing the LDE Saigon on 2 May, and on 5 May they _ phenomenon to alien space probes.) conducted test transmissions and detected At 2:19:29 on the day of the eclipse, the long-delay echoes. On 6 and7 May they _ operator "forgot" to send the required dots, couldn't operate due to inclement weather, but on 8 May they were on the air again and were oun! itting fi ow, a! transmitting for nn the first 10 . x awet minutes of Evolving. every half- __ hour. On 9 May, the day of the eclipse, they sent signals for nearly six hours with one 20-minute break. The Experiments in the 1920s n electromagnetic anomaly called A "long-delay echo" (LDE) was first noticed nearly 80 years ago. It was originally documented in the 3 November 1928 edition of the scientific journal Nature by physicist Carl Stérmer, in response to a letter sent to him by Norwegian radio engineer Jgrgen Hals: "\..at the end of the summer 1927, I repeatedly heard signals from the Dutch short-wave transmitting station PCJJ (Eindhoven). At the same time as I hear the telegraph signals I also heard echoes. I heard the usual echo, which goes around the earth with an interval of about one- seventh second, as well as a weaker echo about 3 seconds after the principal signal had gone. When the principal signal was especially strong, I suppose that the amplitude for the last echo 3 seconds after, lay between one-tenth and one-twentieth o: the principal signal in strength. From where this echo comes I can not say for the present. I will only herewith confirm that I really heard this echo." At the time, the PCJJ station had some o! the most powerful short-wave transmitters in the world. These transmitters were use to broadcast to The Netherlands' far-flung colonies around the world. They were so powerful that the signals were received with clarity and regularity in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). In those days, there was much less man-made interference and congestion in the short-wave bands than there is today, so it was easier to receive signals from 10,000 kilometres or more away. This is not to say that this can't be done today; it can be done quite easily, and the receivers of today are far more sophisticated than they were in 1927. Carl Stormer, the physicist to whom the letter was addressed, teamed up with researcher Balthasar van der Pol at Philips Research Laboratories at Eindhoven in The Netherlands. In September 1928 they started experiments of their own to verify ~4 — NEXUS = 45 AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com