Amateur radio signals that were bounced off Venus some 26 million miles away, have returned to Earth where they were picked up by the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope, PI9RD, in the Netherlands, according to news reports on the 25th of March.
The achievement - the second of its kind in Europe - means that amateur radio signals covered a distance that is more than 100 times greater than those that are traveled by Earth-Moon-Earth, or moon-bounce signals.
Scientists’ fascination with using Venus-bounce dates back several decades when radar was bounced off the planet from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here in the United States. Much later, radar from the Arecibo [ARRA SEE BO] Observatory in Puerto Rico was bounced off Venus and the signal's return to Earth was picked up by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The radar trace was used to create imagery of the planet's surface.
It was a German observatory that achieved what is considered a first for Europe using amateur radio waves: A team from AMSAT-DL achieved bounce and successful reception 16 years ago at the ground station at the Bochum observatory sending a CW signal. Until the Dwingeloo Venus-bounce, this was the only such achievement to date of its kind.
Meanwhile, in the US, a California not-for-profit group, the Open Research Institute, has begun a project as well involving Earth-Venus-Earth experimentation. ORI asks interested hams to contact them via their website, openresearch dot institute. That’s openresearch - one word - dot institute. (openresearch.institute)