Post by Mike Harding on Mar 10, 2024 13:05:29 GMT 10
I'm sure you recall the lost aircraft Malaysia Airlines MH370, presumed crashed in the Indian Ocean in 2014.
A brilliant piece of engineering detective work has been put together by retired British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey which uses an Amateur Radio database and system called WSPR (pronounced whisper) which stands for Weak Signal Propagation Reporting and was developed by Nobel laureate Joe Taylor some 20? years ago.
As you may recall from GN I am a keen Amateur Radio operator (ARO) and have been using WSPR, on and off, pretty much since Joe started it. WSPR works like this:
An ARO, somewhere/anywhere on the planet uses a 5 watt, or less, transmitter which is connected to his computer and sends regular radio signals.
AROs across the planet receive that signal and upload it via the internet to a database. You can view the database here:
WSPR map
Joe's original objective was to create a dataset which helped us understand more about radio wave propagation because much of it is still a mystery.
Keep in mind too that a 5W transmitter is about the same power as a hand-held CB transmitter running from a couple of AA batteries. Nevertheless, as you can see from the map, these signals are finding their way right across the planet and lots of AROs have their computers hooked up to their radios 24/7 and are putting out, and receiving, one hell of a lot of data.
What no one knew (including Nobel Prize winner Joe Taylor) , but Richard Godfrey has discovered is that WSPR signals are affected by aircraft and when an aircraft passes through their path their strength is affected, their frequency is altered very slightly and they may multipath (very technical). What Richard has done is to analyse the very large WSPR database, identify MH370 and plot its final course and landing site in the ocean which is about 30km south of the original search area.
Subsequent work has been done using WSPR and known aircraft to confirm Richard's theory and it looks very solid. There is now considerable pressure to restart the search. I think, if Richard is proven correct, he should be up for a Nobel too.
MH370 WSPR Search
A brilliant piece of engineering detective work has been put together by retired British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey which uses an Amateur Radio database and system called WSPR (pronounced whisper) which stands for Weak Signal Propagation Reporting and was developed by Nobel laureate Joe Taylor some 20? years ago.
As you may recall from GN I am a keen Amateur Radio operator (ARO) and have been using WSPR, on and off, pretty much since Joe started it. WSPR works like this:
An ARO, somewhere/anywhere on the planet uses a 5 watt, or less, transmitter which is connected to his computer and sends regular radio signals.
AROs across the planet receive that signal and upload it via the internet to a database. You can view the database here:
WSPR map
Joe's original objective was to create a dataset which helped us understand more about radio wave propagation because much of it is still a mystery.
Keep in mind too that a 5W transmitter is about the same power as a hand-held CB transmitter running from a couple of AA batteries. Nevertheless, as you can see from the map, these signals are finding their way right across the planet and lots of AROs have their computers hooked up to their radios 24/7 and are putting out, and receiving, one hell of a lot of data.
What no one knew (including Nobel Prize winner Joe Taylor) , but Richard Godfrey has discovered is that WSPR signals are affected by aircraft and when an aircraft passes through their path their strength is affected, their frequency is altered very slightly and they may multipath (very technical). What Richard has done is to analyse the very large WSPR database, identify MH370 and plot its final course and landing site in the ocean which is about 30km south of the original search area.
Subsequent work has been done using WSPR and known aircraft to confirm Richard's theory and it looks very solid. There is now considerable pressure to restart the search. I think, if Richard is proven correct, he should be up for a Nobel too.
MH370 WSPR Search
