Subject: Wow! Signal and Arecibo Shout
From: rcraiggeorge@gmail.com (Craig)
Date: 22/09/2004, 00:54
Newsgroups: alt.sci.seti

I've had this question in the back of my mind ever since I first heard
about the Wow! Signal in 1999. I mentioned it in an email to a
professor at Cornell back then, and he suggested I contact a SETI guy.
So, 5 years later, you're the SETI guys.
 
   In a nutshell, the question is: Could the Wow! Signal be a
reflection of the Arecibo Shout?
 
   The Arecibo Shout was transmitted Nov. 16, 1974 and the Wow! Signal
received at 23:16 on Aug. 15, 1977, making the presumed reflecting
object or objects approximately 90,000 AU from Earth, potentially in
the Oort Cloud. Remember that the Arecibo Shout was intended to be
detectable in M13, and hence a reflection from inside our own solar
system might well be "off the charts". I'm thinking of a specular
reflection, considering the Arecibo-Big Ear experiments as an
unintended radar ranging for objects at Oort distances.
 
   If you run a planetarium package to look at the sky from the
vicinity of Columbus, Ohio at the time of the Wow! reception, you'll
see M13 at an hour angle of 3h 41m and an altitude of 46d 13m.
Although M13 should be the center of any reflection, I don't know what
the size of the Arecibo signal cone would be 90,000 AU out, or how
focused the reflection might be. These are questions that need to be
answered in order to determine the reflection's visibility in either
of the Big Ear's horns.
 
   Both the Arecibo and Big Ear Signals lasted approximately 3
minutes.
 
   The frequencies are not identical (2380 MHz for the Shout, vs 1420
for Wow!, a 5-3 ratio), but considering harmonics, they might be
consistent.
 
    Of course, there's always the possibility of a sentinel ... .
 
   Any response would be appreciated.

   Craig

P.S. I've tried contacting Jerry Ehman about this, but the bigear.org
server keeps going down.