[Ground-station] DEFCON RF Village Talk Accepted

[Michelle Thompson]

Greetings all!

ORI's talk "Hack the Planet" has been accepted by DEFCON RF Village
for this year's DEFCON event. We'll be talking "All about EVE".

It will be irreverent, funny, and accurate.

DEFCON is in August, and the conjunction is in October, so it will be
right before the event itself. This is the best possible time to raise
awareness and publicity.

-Michelle Thompson

Abstract:

Hack the Planet

What does it take to bounce a signal off Venus and hear it back on
Earth? Quite a lot, actually. And we're going to show all of it to
you.

In 2008, AMSAT-DL aimed a carrier wave from a dangerously powerful
magnetron-based transmitter, located at the Bochum Observatory, at
Venus. Four minutes later, they heard an echo. This was the first time
amateurs had bounced a signal of any type off of another planet. This
is a significant and enduring achievement.

However, a radar signal has no information in it. It's a dead carrier.
What does it take to bounce a communications signal off of Venus, and
hear it back here on Earth? First of all, the path loss is immense.
Then, Venus only returns about 13% of the signal that hits it. And,
it's spinning. Information in a signal requires more signal to noise
ratio when compared to a dead carrier, and reflecting off a spinning
surface damages information signals in particular ways that stationary
reflectors do not.

Venus and Earth encounter each other in their orbits only once every
18 months or so. This is the inferior conjunction of the two planets.
Unlike the Moon, frequently used by radio enthusiasts as a reflector,
Venus is barely close enough every 18 months for the largest amateur
and citizen science dishes to reach. This makes timing, preparation,
and coordination equally as important as resolving the technical
challenges.

What are the different parts of an Earth-Venus-Earth digital
communications system? Which parts make the most difference? What
needed to be developed? How did coordination go? What will happen
next? Come to the talk and find out how we are going to Hack a Planet.