"Wizard of Odd" <spiritualhealing2003@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:1139842502.708641.199900@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

'Solar Gravity Lens Transmitter/Receiver

[...]

The focal length would vary
depending on the distance to the target star, but would still be
between 550 and 800 or so AUs.

There are some practical issues to work out before we can place a transceiver at 800 AU.

Like with the observatories, a
civilization may build a huge halo of Gravity Lens communicator arrays
around their home star, one for each neighboring star with someone to
talk to.'

How large is the 'amplification' factor of a Gravity lens ?
If I'm not mistaken it is in the range of 2-10 or so.

It doesn't take long to realise having such an array at a safe distance
from a black hole could increase the power output beyond anyone's
imagination. The transmission would be aimed to cause a slingshot
effect using it's massive gravity to maybe even manipulate time itself,
so a future civilisation could send us information.

What is the amplification factor of a Gravity lens caused by a black hole ?

This makes more sense than a civilisation just sending out a weak
transmission from their own planet.

I doubt it.
It is probably MUCH easier just to make the receiving antenna's 10x larger
(for a 100x more sensitive receiver), and stay on our home planet..
Allows instant re-focusing and easy maintenance...

No halo of transceivers needed at 800 AU distance from the star.