Remember Echo 1 satellite?

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w2xq

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Each morning Tim Farley on SiriusXM 124 POTUS' Morning Briefing does "this day in presidential history", a brief item at ~50 minutes, repeated each hour. Interesting show.

Today, he played an audio clip of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's audio message bounced off Echo 1 -- Project Echo - Wikipedia -- on August 12, 1960. It was the first time a satellite was used to relay a message. Part of the message is in this YouTube
video. The full message is part of this History Channel First Speech Broadcast by Satellite video.

As a teenager I remember being in a darkened campground in the Great Smokies near the NC-TN border and seeing Echo 1 pass overheard. The sun was down, the sky was clear and stars were out, but the sun's angle was still able to light the 100-foot diameter ball.

Fun stuff.
 

VK3RX

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Interesting. I wonder what frequency they used to bounce the signal off the balloon.

I guess amateurs may have monitored their beacons.
 

phask

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Ohio University, Athens Oh, had a part in tracking and some other stuff. I toured their facilities in 66 +- a year. Installation was called Radar Hill. Most of the buildings were temporary or actual semi-trailers. A couple were "off-limits". All the grad students that were running the place could say was GOVERMENT :)

I remember a BC348M being used as a front end with some custom-built down converters. Large all copper duct from the feedhorns into the downconverters.

SOHIO (gas - Standard Oil company) used to print daily schedules in the newspaper. I viwedit many times in my youth.
 

fxdscon

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Interesting. I wonder what frequency they used to bounce the signal off the balloon.

960 and 2390 MHz according to:


and 107.9 MHz beacon transmitters according to:


I clearly remember lying in a field in the far northern parts of Vermont with my Dad watching Echo 1 crossing the sky. Quite a treat back then.

.
 

pitheus

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I was only 3 years old when this happened, thanks for the share
 

trentbob

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960 and 2390 MHz according to:


and 107.9 MHz beacon transmitters according to:


I clearly remember lying in a field in the far northern parts of Vermont with my Dad watching Echo 1 crossing the sky. Quite a treat back then.

.
Some of my earliest memories are that of my dad pointing up at the sky at a moving white dot and pointing out "Echo".
Yes I may be a little older than you guys but that was a memory going to a dark field and watching the little faint dot slowly move across the sky.

It was posted in the newspaper exactly when it would be going over and where to look... I was pretty heavily into astronomy as a kid and knew just where to look. That's something I haven't thought of in a long time.
 

VK3RX

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Actually, I wonder if at the time any amateurs tried bouncing (say) 2m or 70cm off either of them?

They were up there, closer than the Moon .... why not? :)
 

trentbob

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Yeah I wonder about that, I'm going on 66 and I do remember observing numerous times. It was a pretty small magnitude. It did move slowly but... It was moving.

Maybe on some University level or Maybe from Mount Wilson or Yerkes Observatory or atop The Franklin Institute using a beam of some type but there was no commercial or consumer "dish" at that time.

I always remember it being cool time with my dad and my uncle both of which started me with SWL in the mid-sixties.
 

N8IAA

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My uncle worked for DuPont where the skin of Echo1, Mylar, was produced. Used to have many samples of it when I was a kid.

Used to go out and watch it at night also. Really cool stuff from 50+ years ago.
:)
 

phask

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My uncle worked for DuPont where the skin of Echo1, Mylar, was produced. Used to have many samples of it when I was a kid.

Used to go out and watch it at night also. Really cool stuff from 50+ years ago.
:)

Your post reminded me that back in high school. we had someone speak about it and he handed out pieces of Mylar - pretty new material for te time.
 
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