ICE/ISEE-3 to return to an Earth no longer capable of speaking to it

On 02/07/2014 08:51 PM, joe lobocki wrote: All that is needed for the Amateur radio folk so inclined is: What Receive (RX) freq What Transmit (TX) freq What is the encoding scheme and protocol (command, and telemetry) Stat-side antenna gains for TX and RX and MDS of receiver and TX power. That is used to calculate path loss for expected RX signal and TX power needed. Receiving is legally trivial as no license is required. Once heard the schema for decoding the telemtry and data stream would e needed. Note original Fortran or source code is fine as SIMH and a machine description can make that go. Or likely a Raspberry Pi as that is enough compute power to out run any thing more than 25 years old. Generally the communications side required only limited computer support, the laster data reduction might need much more. One interesting things is with current SDR system that hams have available they can record the received signal spectra and then post process it off line as needed. this allows divorcing the receiving from decoding which can occur later. Can hams do it? Most likely especially those hams that are classic comp sorts. The TX side is more a legal issue as one would need all the info about how to communicate then apply for a special permit NASA can help. The rest is building gear likely those vendors that built the original would help sponsor the hams involved. The key is of there are enough mission connected people with enough will to push it forward and establish the team needed to get to the required stuff. Allison/KB1GMX