EME communication
EME communication
EME communication, which stands for Earth-Moon-Earth communication, is known as moon bounce. The concept is to send radio signals from the earth to the moon, then by the surface of the moon reflected back to earth and then signal received. It means to use the moon as a passive reflector for accomplishing the two way communication between two locations on earth. As we know the distance between the Earth and the moon is very large, there will be huge path loss during the transmission. Although it is hard to build a successful EME communication system, there are many amateur radio enthusiasts are interested in it.
The EME communication history could be traced back to 1940. A man named W.J. Bray of the British General Post Office proposed the use of that the Moon as a passive communications satellite. The available microwave transmission powers and low noise receivers were calculated at this time. The “moon bounce” was developed by United States Military in the year after World War 2. The first successful reception of echoes off the Moon was on Jaunary 10, 1946 by John H.DeWitt. Then the technique was used by non-military commercial users, and the first amateur signals detection was in 1953.[1]
EME communication tech has many challenges to make it hard to achieve. The first challenge is the path loss. The distance between the moon and earth is 380000 kilometres, so the whole path distance is 770000 kilometres. The albedo of the moon is very low, that signals return from the moon maximally 12% but usually closer to 7%. A radio signal from send and return takes about 2.5 seconds. As the path loss is 252dB, it is easy to think out how hard it is to build an EME communication system.[2] An EME communication system requires top station, power amplifier and a giant antenna array. As EME communication is hard to come out, it is the highest realm of amateur radio communication activity.
Secondly, because radio signal propagation has straight line
EME communication, which stands for Earth-Moon-Earth communication, is known as moon bounce. The concept is to send radio signals from the earth to the moon, then by the surface of the moon reflected back to earth and then signal received. It means to use the moon as a passive reflector for accomplishing the two way communication between two locations on earth. As we know the distance between the Earth and the moon is very large, there will be huge path loss during the transmission. Although it is hard to build a successful EME communication system, there are many amateur radio enthusiasts are interested in it.
The EME communication history could be traced back to 1940. A man named W.J. Bray of the British General Post Office proposed the use of that the Moon as a passive communications satellite. The available microwave transmission powers and low noise receivers were calculated at this time. The “moon bounce” was developed by United States Military in the year after World War 2. The first successful reception of echoes off the Moon was on Jaunary 10, 1946 by John H.DeWitt. Then the technique was used by non-military commercial users, and the first amateur signals detection was in 1953.[1]
EME communication tech has many challenges to make it hard to achieve. The first challenge is the path loss. The distance between the moon and earth is 380000 kilometres, so the whole path distance is 770000 kilometres. The albedo of the moon is very low, that signals return from the moon maximally 12% but usually closer to 7%. A radio signal from send and return takes about 2.5 seconds. As the path loss is 252dB, it is easy to think out how hard it is to build an EME communication system.[2] An EME communication system requires top station, power amplifier and a giant antenna array. As EME communication is hard to come out, it is the highest realm of amateur radio communication activity.
Secondly, because radio signal propagation has straight line