TV transmissions from years ago- how common are they? (1 Viewer)

[Scott Strang]

I've heard of this happening, but have never known someone personally that saw them.

Has anyone here seen them?

 

[MickeS]

Yeah, I saw them.... years ago.

/Mike

 

[Jack Briggs]

I'll get back with you after I finish listening to this radio broadcast I'm listening to on the filling in my tooth.

 

[Scott Strang]

Do you guys not know what I'm asking?
Or just being cute?

 

[RobertR]

I've heard of a lot of things happening.

It's coming up with a sound reason for thinking that some of them are what they claim to be that's the hard part.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I have a Beta tape with the tail end of the original airing of "Sybil" in 1977; someone taped something else over it so the end's all that's left, would've been cool to have a copy of the whole thing the first time it was shown

 

[MikeAlletto]

Ok, I'll bite...I don't have a clue as to what you are talking about...

 

[Ike]

I believe he is talking about TV signals still floating around in the air that were aired long ago...like how some people say that if there were life on other planets, they'd be watching I Love Lucy right about now because the transmissions never go away.

 

[Scott Strang]

Supposedly it's possible for TV (and FM radio which TV is anyway) signals to end up "bounced" back to Earth even though they may be many years (20 years although they could be of any age) old. I read about this actually happening years ago, but I really can't remember where.

 

[CharlesD]

how some people say that if there were life on other planets, they'd be watching I Love Lucy right about now because the transmissions never go away

Even if there were intelligent beings on even the nearest star (4.5 light years) they would never have been watching 'I Love Lucy'. First of all there are many sources of TV and radio signals on Earth using a variety of frequencies. At any given times multiple sources are using the same frequency, only there are far enough apart so as to not interfere with each other.

The transmitters are designed only to transmit to limited areas. From a distance in space there would only be a faint mish-mash of conflicting radio-frequency emissions. A radio-astronomer once calculated that the all the TV & radio on Earth could not be detected more than 1 or 2 light years away by the best equipment currently available.

 

[Steve Enemark]

[sarcasm]

...and we all know our technology is superior to any alien civilizations', known or unknown. Therefore, it is impossible for aliens to monitor our TV/radio traffic.

[/sarcasm]

 

[John Miles]

...and we all know our technology is superior to any alien civilizations', known or unknown. Therefore, it is impossible for aliens to monitor our TV/radio traffic.

It's safe to say the alien communications receivers have to obey the same laws of information theory and channel capacity (Shannon) that ours do. The real problem with weak-signal TV reception isn't power; it's bandwidth. Wideband signals like TV have to compete with a lot more thermal noise power than narrowband signals do, and once the signal-to-noise ratio degrades beyond a certain point due to distance, the signal becomes fundamentally unrecoverable.
For interplanetary communication, you need to use a low data rate relative to the channel's bandwidth; a correlated link that offers process gain; and/or high antenna gain in the direction of interest. Commercial TV and radio broadcasts don't meet any of these criteria.
It's completely impossible for any sort of unintentionally-generated echoes to be received across interstellar space. Even if we wanted to do this on purpose, we couldn't, not without sending probably quadrillions of watts through very high-gain antennas at a known reflector body, and taking who-knows-how-much DSP time to extract the signal, which (by the way) would make a 300-baud modem look like God's own DSL line.
There was indeed an article on "long-delayed echoes" (LDEs) in the ham radio magazine QST many years ago, but it was an April Fools' joke.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Any of you ever experience multiplexing problems when listening to FM broadcasts via your fillings? I'm also having problems with signal drift. There may be a sensitivity issue here. Do gold fillings pull in cleaner signals? This is driving me crazy.

 

[RobertR]

Do gold fillings pull in cleaner signals?

The soundstage becomes wider, the bass becomes tighter and has more slam and extension, the midrange attains greater focus and liquidity, there is improved pacing and dynamics, and micro details are more readily discernible. The difference is night and day (except when I'm not told about the gold fillings).

And anyone who says otherwise doesn't have my Golden Ears.

 

[andrew markworthy]

This is a really dumb related question. Don't a lot of our radio signals rely on the existence of the Heaviside Layer to bounce them off? Suppose this is a really rare phenomenon - would life on other planets have bothered with radio at all (because it could only be used over short distances). And if not, would they look out for radio signals as a sign of other civilizations trying to contact them?

 

[Jack Briggs]

"...except when I'm not told about the gold fillings..."

I am willing to bet that you do not subscribe to Absolute Sound. One thing, though--didn't someone say that gold fillings also render broadcasts with more front-to-back depth? And I like a really focused soundstage.

Or should I give up and listen to FM broadcasts with a brass bed?

 

[RicP]

Do gold fillings pull in cleaner signals

Jack, if you paint your teeth green, your reception will improve immeasurably.
Of course there may be social implications, but Hey...that's the price we pay for good sound.

 

[Jack Briggs]

You're right! I forgot the green paint thing. If it can work with CDs, then it can work with gold fillings. That's my solution, then. But I'll have to think of something to tell the people at work. No matter, though--anything for a cleaner signal with more front-to-back depth.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

The beginning of the movie "Contact" sorta illustrates this theory.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Well, I'm guided by the voices in my head. And I do everything my Rice Krispies tell me to.