Reel 07
Papers & Logs
Our sideHow we receive, how we translate, and what the equipment actually costs to run. Written plainly, in our own voice — not the Wire's. This half is real radio.
Hydrogen-line build guides, in order
- 01 · LAB-008The $150 Hydrogen-Line Receiver, End to End
- 02 · LAB-009First Light: Detecting the Hydrogen Line with an RTL-SDR V3 and a Horn
- 03 · LAB-010Cantenna, Horn or Dish: Choosing a Hydrogen-Line Antenna
- 04 · LAB-011LNA Placement and Coax Loss at 1420 MHz
- 05 · LAB-012Reading Your First Hydrogen-Line Spectrum
- 06 · LAB-013From Spectra to a Galactic Rotation Curve
Papers, logs and translation notes
From IQ Samples to Wire Text: The Sixmile Run Processing Pipeline
A technical walkthrough of the signal processing steps between the SDR's IQ output and a translatable dispatch: IQ capture and spectrogram isolation, framing detection, differential PSK encoding hypothesis, and where the translation layer begins and ends.
The Receive Chain: What Sixmile Run Uses and Why
A full walkthrough of the Sixmile Run water-hole receive chain: dish, feedline, LNA, SDR receiver, and software, with specific gear choices at each stage and a $150 entry-tier option.
Why We Listen at 1420 MHz
The hydrogen line at 1420.4 MHz, why it is the SETI community's working-consensus frequency, and what equipment the water-hole band actually requires.
Batch confidence review: Cycles 122 through 124
A confidence audit of four dispatches (CW-0002 through CW-0005), focusing on the phrase the translation renders as 'ordinary review' — high phrase-level confidence, uncertain referent, and what that distinction actually costs us.
Signal Log: Late August, and the Receiver Upgrade We Keep Not Buying
A plain equipment-and-uptime log from Sixmile Run — dish downtime, LNA swap, and the honest state of the funding situation heading into the next receiver upgrade.
A Note on Translation Confidence (and Why We Publish the Gaps)
How the Sixmile Run translation process actually works — structural inference over the transmission's recurring patterns, confidence levels, and why unresolved gaps get published rather than smoothed over.
Why We Listen on the Water Hole (and What's Actually in the Signal Chain)
An equipment-and-methodology writeup of the Sixmile Run receive chain — the water-hole band, the dish, the LNA, and why cheap coax will quietly ruin all of it.