CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Microwave engineers and engineers in general tend to be in their profession beca use they like technical

challenges. Historically, one of the biggest challenges has been how to extend radio communications, especially at microwave frequencies , beyond the horizon. One way to achieve this end at microwaves is to bounce rad io signals off the Moon. This form of propagation is known as moonbounce or Earth-M oon-Earth (EME) and is considered the ultimate in long-distance 50-MHz-and-above communications. The Moon is approximately 385,000 km (240,000 mi) from the Earth , and refl ecting signals from it allows communication between any two points (s ee Figure 1). Because the Moon is so far away and not a particularly good refl e ctor (about 7% effi cient), communication using it as a passive refl ector is no t easy and considered by many a challenge. This topic will discuss EME in more d etail. It will cover some of the history of this form of propagation, technical obstacles to success and their solutions, and who is using the Moon today.

CHAPTER 2 HISTORY OF EME COMMUNICATION During World War II, there were reports of possible reflections of radar signals from the Moon. It was not until after the war, in 1946, that the reflection of radio waves off the Moon was documented [1][3]. A group of U.S. Signal Corps engi neers achieved the honor of detecting the first documented radio signals reflect ed from the Moon as part of a project called Diana. This project was the brain c hild of John DeWitt, a fellow of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) (predece ssor to the IEEE), a radio amateur (N4CBC) and the project leader. The experimen t was conducted at 112 MHz, using what we would call today a large phased array (see Figure 2) and a 3,000 W transmitter built by Edwin Armstrong. At almost the same time, Zoltan Bay, working in Hungary, achieved similar results [4]. He use d the same frequency range and a similar antenna, but, because of transmit power limitations, he developed an ingenious technique to detect the reflected signal s. He sent repeated pulses over an extended period of time (months) and integrat ed the returned signals. Each time he sent a pulse, he would detect the signal o ver the expected echo time period and sum/store the voltage received at each poi nt in time (see Figure 3). Because he lacked a way to retain voltage over a long time (capacitors were leaky), he applied a technique from chemistry. He used th e detected voltage for a hydrolysis of water, converting the water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. After many transmissions, he analyzed the amount of gas produce d, which he stored in jars associated with different intervals of time. He found the jars corresponding to 2.5 s after transmission of a pulse, the time for a s ignal to travel to the Moon and back, contained by far the most gas. The concept of using the Moon for radio communicationsactually preceded the Diana experimen t. W.J. Bray of the British General Post Office proposed the idea in 1940 [5]. N ot long after the success of Project Diana, the military started to employ the M oon for long-distance microwave communications that were free of the vagaries of

ionospheric propagation seen at lower frequencies. These applications of moonbo unce included a teletype link between the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the U.S. Navy headquarters in Washington, D.C. [6]. Eventually, these links wer e replaced by active communication satellites. Another group that saw the potent ial of moonbounce was the radio amateur community. Many radio amateurs are invol ved in the hobby because they are interested in technical challenges and in exte nding the limits of radio propagation. They compete to see who can consistently communicate the farthest at the highest frequency. Moonbounce offered a way to a chieve communication over distances not possible by other means. Amateurs were n ot far behind the professionals. In January 1953, Ross Bateman (W4AO) and Bill S mith (W3GKP) reported reception of EME echoes on 144 MHz but never achieved twoway communication [7]. It was not until 1960 that the first two-way contacts wer e made at 1,296 MHz by a group led by Sam Harris (W1FZJ) and amateurs from the E IMAC Radio Club led by Bob Sutherland (W6PO) (see Figure 4) [8]. Within a year, two-way contacts were completed on the 432 MHz and 144 MHz bands. Sam Harris lat er became chief engineer of the 305 m (1,000 ft) Arecibo Radio Telescope. By 197 3, the use of EME by amateurs had increased to the point that communication at 4 32 MHz could be completed with all continents by one of the authors, Allen Katz (K2UYH) [9]. Today, EME contacts have been made on all the amateur bands from 28 MHz to 47 GHz (see Figure 5) with countries all over the Earth [10]. Fig: 1.1 Zoltan Bay integrated the detected voltage over time from many repeate d transmissions.

Path Loss Radio signals in free space are attenuated as 1/r2 (inverse distance squared) du e to spatial expansion of the radio waves. In moonbounce, this dissolution of si gnal intensity occurs twice; first, over the quartermillion- mile path to the Mo on and again on the return trip, for a net 1/r4 path loss. Radio waves hitting t he surface of the Moon are partly absorbed and partly scattered by the irregular surface. The EME path loss, L, as a ratio of received power to transmitted powe r in decibels, assuming isotropic antennas at each end, can be expressed as

where d is the diameter of the Moon, l the wavelength, r the distance to the Mo on, and h a factor for lunar reflection efficiency. Using d53.476 3 106 m, r53.8 3 108 m, and h50.07 gives an L of 251.5 dB at 144 MHz, currently the most popul ar amateur band for use of EME, and nearly 300 dB for 47 GHz, the highest freque ncy band where amateurs have achieved EME thus far (see Figure 6). These very la rge values of loss are the main reason why EME is so challenging. The signal lev el difference between receiving a signal transmitted from the Moon and one refle cted from it is enormous. For the example cited, it is almost 130 dB. It is thus much easier to receive a signal transmitted from the Moon. Many radio amateurs monitored the signals transmitted by astronauts during the Apollo missions. The values above are for the average L. The Moons orbit is an ellipse, causing r to v ary by about 67% each month with a corresponding variation in L of nearly 2.25 d B [11], [12]. The dependence of L on l2 makes it appear that EME is more difficu lt at higher frequencies. This conclusion is misleading because the assumption i s based on the use of isotropic antennas. Isotropic antennas are fixed in gain. Antenna gain, G, is dependent on area, A, and wavelength as follows:

If one uses transmitting and receiving antennas of a constant area, irrespective of frequency (for example a fixed diameter parabolic dish), the situation is re

versed. For a given transmitted power, lunar echoes will be stronger rather than weaker at higher frequencies. This increase in signal level occurs because a co nstant size receive antenna collects the same signal power (flux density times a rea), independent of frequency. On transmit, however, a constant area antenna pr oduces a narrower beam at higher frequencies and hence a higher flux density. Mo st practical situations fall between these two extremes of frequency dependence. At higher frequency, the ability to maintain an antennas tolerances and pointing accuracy limit the practical size of an antenna, while at lower frequencies, re sonant wire antennas can allow antennas to be constructed with more aperture/gai n than their apparent physical size. Interestingly, EME communication is current ly being achieved by amateurs with a roughly comparable degree of practical diff iculty over nearly two decades of frequency, from the 144 MHz to 10 GHz bands, b ut with very different techniques being used for successful EME at the lower and upper extremes of this wide frequency range.

System Considerations An EME communication system basically consists of a transmitter, antennas (used for both transmit and receive), and a receiver. The modulation used is also an important factor in of the overall system performance. The signal power received , Pr, is simply the transmitted power, Pt, times the gain of the transmit antenn a, Gt, times L, times the gain of the receive antenna, Gr. Noise is contributed by the receiver and the antenna and ultimately set the limits on the ability to communicate [13]. Noise from the antenna includes contributions from the warm Ea rth, the atmosphere, the lunar surface, and cosmic sources. It is often convenie nt to express noise power in terms of an equivalent noise temperature, T.

T is related to power, P, by the receiver bandwidth, B in Hz, and Boltzmanns cons tant, k51.38 3 10223 J/K: P5kTB. (3) The system noise temperature, Ts, is Ts5Tr1 Ta, (4) where Tr is the receiver noise temperature and Ta is the antenna noise t emperature. Tr is related to receiver noise figure, NF in dB by Tr52901100.1NF21 2. (5) Ta includes noise from all sources in the field of view of the antenna, w eighted by the antennas pattern. The lunar surface has a temperature of around 21 0 K but has a minimal contribution to Ta since most amateur antennas have beam w idths much greater than the Moons angular size. Antenna sidelobes can be a signif icant contributor to Ta because their total solid angle can be large, and these sidelobes need to be considered even if they are many decibels down from the mai n beam. Below 1 GHz, the most important antenna noise source is cosmic noise, pr imarily from our galaxy. Cosmic noise scales with frequency to a 2.6 power, as il lustrated in Figure 7. This figure assumes a typical amateur EME antenna, one de signed for the addition of low Earth noise. At VHF, Ta can increase by as much a s ten times in average value depending on the location of the Moon in the sky at different times of the month. For frequencies 1 GHz and above, cosmic noise is negligible in most directions and can be virtually ignored. At frequencies great er than about 5 GHz, the Earths atmosphere starts to contribute to Ta, and noise power increases again. Because of the huge path loss, EME signals are normally w

eak, and achieving a positive signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is of overriding impor tance. If Pn is the total noise power, SNR can be expressed in dB as: SNR5Pr2Pn5Pt1Gt1L1Gr2Pn. (6) Radio amateurs are usually not interested in transmitting large amounts of infor mation; their main goal is establishing communication under very weak signal con ditions. EME transmission bandwidth requirements are thus normally small, and a minimum bandwidth is often used, (as little as one hertz, or even less), to maxi mize the SNR.

System Components The focus of transmitters used for EME is on the power amplifier. Generally, the highest power is desired to maximize the SNR. This power level is limited by re gulations, available technology, and economics. The maximum output power in the United States is 1.5 kW, but many stations run lower power. At frequencies below 2 GHz, gridded vacuum tube power amplifiers still dominate, but are rapidly bei ng replaced by solid-state power amplifiers (SSPAs), particularly at lower power levels (less than 100 W). A block diagram of a typical VHF amateur transmitter is shown in Figure 8. At frequencies above 2 GHz, traveling wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) dominate but are also being rapidly replaced by SSPAs. The transition t o SSPAs is the principal advance in transmitter technology since the early perio d of EME when a 3-kW transmitter was used for the first echoes. Examples of an SSPA and TWTAs are also shown in Figur e 8. The biggest technological impact on moonbounce has been to the receiver. The cri tical part of the receiver is the first amplifier stage that connects to the ant enna. It is this stage that often is the major contributor to the noise power in the SNR. Because of the very high EME path loss and the low noise contributed b y the antenna, the noise added by the receiver must be as small as possible, as illustrated in Figure 9. Advances in device technology have reduced the noise ad ded by the receiver by more than an order of magnitude since the early days of a mateur EME. A parametric amplifier (par amp) with a noise figure of more than a decibel was used for the first 1,296 MHz EME contact. Sam Harris (W1FZJ) on the eastern end was among the early parametric amplifier innovators. The introduction of Gallium Arsenide (Ga As) field effect transistors (FETs) in the 1970s was a major breakthrough for EM E enthusiasts, and has made the GaAs low-noise preamplifier (LNA) an integral pa rt of virtually all amateur EME stations. Amateurs have become adept at producin g LNAs that rival the best professionally produced amplifiers [14]. They have al so pioneered techniques for measuring LNA performance using cosmic noise as a re ference that produce superior accuracy than commercially available noise figure meters [15]. At 1,296 MHz, LNAs with a Tr under 10 K have been reported (see Fig ure 10) and, even at 78 GHz, lownoise receivers have been produced by amateurs f or EME, as shown in Figure 11. Any feedline between an antenna and a receiver introduces attenuation and noise. Consequently, LNAs for EME are normally mounted as close to the antenna termina ls as feasible to achieve the lowest possible noise figure. At ambient temperatu re, every 0.1 dB of loss in front of the LNA adds about 7 K to Ts. At microwave frequencies where antenna temperatures are much lower than ambient, this change can correspond to a receiver degradation of more than 0.5 dB. LNA gain must be s ufficient to overcome subsequent feedline losses and dominate the noise contribu ted by subsequent stages. Current practices usually employ one or two low-noise GaAs devices in a preamplifier with a simple noise impedance matching circuit to minimize losses. (Only if severe out-of-band interference is present will a fil ter be used in front of the LNA because of the resulting loss.) Since the same a ntenna is generally used for both transmit and receive, the LNA must be switched out of the line when transmitting, and thus the transmit/receive relay used mus

t also be selected for minimum loss.

Many amateurs consider the antenna the most important component of an EME statio n and devote a large share of their effort on it. There are essentially only two types of antennas used by amateurs for EME today: the yagi and the parabolic di sh, although there are many variants of these basic antennas. Yagis, either sing ularly (usually very long in wavelengths) or in arrays, are used almost exclusiv ely in VHF bands. Figures 12 and 13 show examples of a large yagi array and a si ngle yagi antenna, respectively. Both linear and loop element yagis are used. At higher frequencies, parabolic dishes dominate and are used almost exclusively a bove 2 GHz. Both full and offset dishes are used (as illustrated in earlier figu res), with offset designs more common at frequencies above 5 GHz. Figure 14 show s a 15-m dish used for EME by HB9Q in Switzerland. Considerable effort by many individuals has been applied to the design of high-g ain yagis with special attention paid to achieving minimal sidelobes to keep Ta low. (The importance of low Ta is shown in Figure 15.) This effort has been made possible by the availability of accurate antenna modeling software. The gain of a modern, well designed yagi of length l can be approximated by the equation

Yagis are light, relatively easy to build, and have low wind resistance. Long ya gis designed for EME are generally narrowband antennas with bandwidth traded for gain and better sidelobe performance. Yagis can be combined in phased arrays to yield nearly 3 dB for each doubling of the number of elements. Large arrays of eight, 16, or even more yagis are not uncommon. The gain of a parabolic dish of diameter d with a feed yielding 55% efficiency is

The gain of many of the dishes used for EME is probably somewhat higher than gi ven by (8) as considerable time has also been spent modeling feed designs for op timum efficiency. A popular method of constructing dishes by amateurs is to make use of the natural tendency of materials to form an approximate parabolic shape . Figure 16 shows a parabolic dish constructed by one of the authors using this stress technique. Many amateur dish antennas use multiple ring scalar feeds to a chieve efficiencies nearer to 70% [16]. Dish antennas offer the advantage of bei ng usable on multiple frequency bands by simply changing their feed antenna or u sing a multiband feed. Figure 17 shows a scalar horn feed used for 1,296 MHz EME . A linear polarized antenna is usually thought of as being either horizontal or vertical. When dealing with the spherical Earth, these concepts have meaning on ly locally. As seen from the Moon, horizontal antennas on different continents w ill have very different orientations. In addition, when a linearly polarized wav e passes through the Earths atmosphere, its plane of polarization is rotated in p roportion to the local freeelectron density, the Earths magnetic field intensity, and the square of wavelength. This phenomenon is known as Faraday rotation. Far aday rotation is greatest during the daytime for stations well away from the equ ator and at low (VHF) frequencies. A mismatch in angle, DU, between an incoming

waves polarization and the receiving antenna will attenuate the received signal p ower by cos2DU. Polarization losses increase to 3 dB when the misalignment is 45 8 and increase rapidly at high angles up to 908, as shown in Figure 18. Because of the l2 dependence, Faraday rotation is only important for EME operation below 1 GHz, and is insignificant at higher frequencies. Faraday rotation in the dayt ime ionosphere can be as much as a full turn at 432 MHz and many turns at 144 MH z. At 432 MHz, the rotation may be essentially constant over several hours or mo re; at lower frequencies, significant changes can occur in 30 min. Variations ar e especially noticeable near sunrise or sunset, when ionization levels are chang ing rapidly, as illustrated Figure. \

FARADAY ROTATION Even in the absence of any Faraday rotation, an EME signal transmitted with a h orizontal antenna will have its linear polarization misaligned at a receive site by an angle uS known as the spatial polarization offset. The return signal will b e offset in the opposite direction, 2uS. The Faraday rotation angle uF, on the o ther hand, will have the same sign for signals traveling in both directions. The net polarization shift is uF1uS, while the shift in the reverse direction is uF 2uS. A consequence of this difference is nonreciprocal, one-way propagation, in which the polarization may align in one direction but be totally out of phase in the other direction (see

Figure. Because of this problem, many moonbounce stations have the ability to ch ange the polarization of their antennas. One solution is to mount two sets of ya gi elements at right angles on the same boom. Other stations rotate the whole an tenna to correct for polarization alignment errors. For dish type antennas, it i s relatively easy to rotate feed antennas or use a feed horn with cross-polarize d elements. Another solution is to use circular polarization. Dishes lend themse lves to circular polarization by the addition of a circular polarized feed. Howe ver, when operating EME, a station must transmit on one sense circular polarizat ion and receive on the opposite sense, since the sense of a circularly polarized wave is reversed when it is reflected. A station transmitting with right-hand c ircular polarization must receive with left-hand circular in order to receive it s own echoes, and those of other stations transmitting right-hand circular. The transmission of one circular sense and reception of the other is not difficult a s many circular feeds operate in exactly this way. The transmission of right-han d circular and reception on lefthand circular polarization has become the standa rd for EME on most of the microwave bands. A clean pattern with good suppression of sidelobes and rear lobes is important for all EME antennas, but especially a t microwave frequencies where excessive noise pickup through sidelobes can signi ficantly increase Ts. Modern, computer-aided design programs have been used to o

ptimize G/Ts, the ratio of forward gain to system noise temperature. For parabol ic dishes, G/Ts can be optimized by using a feed with a somewhat larger taper in illumination at the edge of the dish than would yield the highest forward gain. Figure 21 shows a horn optimized by one of the authors for performance and circ ular polarization with a dish having focal length to diameter ratio (f/d) of 0.5 [17].

Digital Signal Processing and Signal Detection Another possible way to extend communications in weak-signal scenarios like moo nbounce is to use a more efficient modulation scheme that allows a narrower band width than possible with ones ears. For many years, amateurs have been experiment ing with digital signal processing (DSP) to allow the reception of weaker signal s than can be copied by ear. However, these attempts were not very successful un til relatively recently. Part of the problem is that our ears are very good at w hat they do. Another factor is the nature of the weak-signal propagation,which d oes not simply add noise to the signal, but actually multiplies the signal by th e noise and spreads the frequency limiting the effective minimum bandwidth and t he related signal enSignal frequency spreading and related fading are especially a problem for EME. The Moons rotation and orbital motion are synchronized causin g the same side of the Moon to always point toward the Earth. Since its orbit is elliptical, its orbital speed varies, but as its rotation rate is constant, on Earth, an apparent slow rocking of the Moon is seen. This effect is call lunar l ibration and resultsin a Doppler-related frequency spreading that increases the effective minimum bandwidth from about 0.2 Hz at 144 MHz to more than 30 Hz at 1 0 GHz. (The spreading is not quite linear with frequency because a larger portio n of the lunar surface contributes to echo power at higher frequencies). The rel ative motion of the Moon and the Earth also causes the signal frequency to be sh ifted by the Doppler effect. This shift is proportional to frequency. A Moon ech os Doppler frequency shift is maximum and positive at moonrise, falls to zero as the Moon crosses zenith, and is a maximum negative at moonset. For two stations at different locations, the mutual Doppler shift is the sum of the individual (o ne-way echo) shifts. Maximum shifts are around 440 Hz at 144 MHz, 4 kHz at 1,296 MHz and 30 kHz at 10 GHz. Different reflection points on the lunar surface prod uce different Doppler shifts that add to the spreading and increase the effectiv e minimum bandwidth. When narrow bandwidths are used to improve signal detection , the receive frequency must be corrected for the Doppler shift, which complicat es any DSP. The fading associated with frequency spreading also degrades the rec eption of CW signals. Signal amplitudes remain nearly constant over a coherence time given by the reciprocal of the frequency spreading enhancement. Typical coh erence times range from several seconds at 144 MHz to about 20 ms at 10 GHz (see Figure 23). The related libration fading, is most rapid when the Moon is near z enith and lowest at moonrise and moonset. The fading in the UHF frequency range (432 and 1,296 MHz bands) tends to be at a rate that can adversely impact CW cop y, converting dashes into dots and severely degrading reception. Libration fadin g varies in a complex way with the Moons orbit. It is possible using a computer t o search for times with preferred libration rates at a givenfrequency band to im prove CW copy.

The success of the new digital modulation formats/ DSP techniques that have beco

me popular in recent years is based on eliminating the need to accurately know a nd maintain a stations frequency. In the past, it was essential to very accuratel y know the frequency to find and decode a weak signal utilizing effective minimu m bandwidths that could be a few hertz or less; a technical requirement not eas ily accomplished by many radio amateurs. The digital modulation most widely used for EME is JT65 [19], [20]. This mode was conceived by Joe Taylor (K1JT), a Nob el Prize winning physicist. It employs a synchronizing (sync) signal with a quas irandom amplitude pattern to provide both frequency and timing information (see Figure 24). About half of the transmission power is used in the sync, but this p ower investment is well worth the convenience provided. To overcome the effect o f libration, it uses error-correcting coding, and other diversity techniques to substantially improve the reliability of EME signal copy. It digitizesmessages w ith a modified Reed-Solomon error-correcting code to enable detection even when many symbols have been lost in transmission. JT65 is based on multifrequency shi ft keying (MFSK), and uses 65 equally spaced (65-FSK) computer- generated audio tones to modulate a single sideband (SSB) transmitter. The results show that EME communication can be regularly achieved at signal levels 610 dB below those norm ally required with CW. This improved performance is due in part to JT65s narrower detection bandwidth that is closer to the effective minimum bandwidth than CW b andwidths. (Different versions of JT65 have been developed to allow its bandwidt h to be matched to the frequency spreading on different EME frequency bands). MF SK is more information efficient than CW (International Morse code) because each received symbol is roughly the equivalent of a full character, rather than indi vidual dots or dashes. Consequently, JT65 can be sent more slowly than CW and be detected in a smaller bandwidth (5 Hz for the JT65B mode used on 144 MHz versus about 50 Hz for CW). CW is self-synchronizing at the character level (if strong enough for letters to be recognized), but provides no means for synchronizing a whole message, which makes piecing together fragments of a repeated CW message difficult. JT65s Reed-Solomon block coding enables a full message to be decoded w ith no errors with high likelihood even when less than a quarter of the symbols have been correctlycorrectly copied. Figure 25 shows the display provided by the JT65 software. Messages received in successive transmissions are shown in the b ox in the center of the screen along with details on signal amplitude, frequency , timing and spectral spreading. An SSTV imagereflectedfromthe Moon is shown in page 2

Conclusion

Aside from scientific studies, radio amateurs are the only group presently regu larly utilizing EME for communications. As a result of improvements in technolog y and the use of DSP-based modulation, moonbounce has become the most popular pr opagation for weaksignal communication at frequencies above 50 MHz. At the time of this writing, use of EME is highest in the 144 MHz band, where JT65 is by far the preferred modulation. Just about anytime the Moon is above the horizon in E urope and North America, JT65 EME signals can be detected in the frequency range between 144.100 and 144.160 MHz. Several hundreds of stations worldwide regularly operate with moonbounce using JT65 on 144 MHz. The next two most popul ar EME bands are 432 MHz and 1,296 MHz. In both these bands there is still signi ficant use of CW and even SSB (voice) modulation for EME communications because of the higher SNRs that can be achieved with moderate sized antennas. Use of dig

ital modulation techniques is growing in these frequency bands as new radio amat eurs in many countries are no longer required to know CW. A hundred or more stations are typically active on these bands during regularly sc heduled international EME competitions, and in other major operating events. The higher microwave bands, 2.3 GHz and above, have at least several dozen stations that regularly operate EME.

Most of the amateurs involved in EME do it for the technical challenge . The thrill of building a system with which one can send a signal into space an d detect signals returning from the Moon is very real. Many of the amateurs invo lved in EME are also interested in extending the state of the art of radio commu nications. Improving antenna and receiver performance has always been a major co mponent of EME, now DSP and the search for improved algorithms for the reception of weak signals from the Moon is also a part of it. The effort to extend the hi ghest EME frequency, presently to 78 GHz goes on and the quest continues.