I know we have a few Hams on the DTVUSA Forum. Did any of you participate in the ARRL Field Day this weekend? And we all think it's tough receiving a
DTV signal from 45 plus miles across the earths surface. Some of the Amateur Radio stations go all out in this competition. Bouncing their signal off of the moon, to communicate with other Hams across the Earth.
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"Conditions change throughout the day and at some point the signals will come in better from various different places. So we might be able to talk to someone in the Far East or someone back in Europe," Mair said.
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Field Day also provides an annual exercise in setting up and operating radio equipment remotely. This way, the airwaves can be used in the event of an emergency such as an earthquake when electricity, phone and wireless communications can be lost.
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ARRLWeb: Field Day 2009 Rules
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Scores of Bay Area ham radio operators will aim high this weekend to see who can bounce their signals off the moon in an effort to talk to friends far away.
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Radio signals normally are reflected off various layers of Earth's ionosphere, which ranges from about 55 to 375 miles high. The moon is 225,000 to 252,000 miles away, depending on its point of orbit around Earth.
It's a lot tougher for ham radio operators to bounce signals off the moon than off the ionosphere, said Teter, a ham operator whose "handle," or call sign is KG6LWE.
"The moon is far less than a perfect reflector," Teter said. "Its surface is rough and it keeps moving all the time, which means we'll have to keep moving our antennas constantly as we follow it."
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Ham radio operators shoot for the moon
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