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Long Delayed Echo

darklife

darklife

Modulating Madness
Apr 8, 2013
63
69
28
US
www.darkliferadio.proboards.com
Story time...

Well propagation here is crap now that it's the dark time of year for CB skip so it got me thinking about the good old times when skip was at its peak.
This reminded me of a childhood experience which stuck with me when the 11 year solar cycle was at its peak and skip was crazy good.

So here I was with one of my first 4 watt CB radios in my bedroom with a mag mount antenna on top of the roof of my house with no metal under it. I understood little about antennas at the time and figured a car antenna could work fine as a house antenna without the metal roof. I was probably around 13 or 14 y/o.

After a fun day of chatting to people from all over the place I noticed the band started to quiet a little and I started talking shit like most young teens did on CB back then and then released the mic button only to be creeped out by hearing exactly everything I just said almost like a tape recording being transmitted back to me only it was delayed by around 10 seconds.

I thought for sure someone was messing with me so I got back on and asked who was playing back everything I said. Unkeyed and sure enough there was an echo of me again sounding like it was only a mile or so away with good reception.
This kept on for a few minutes until eventually I heard these echoes fade and then the band went completely quiet as skip was then out for the evening.

I always wondered who/what did this as a kid. Aliens? Some freak a few miles away?
Later in my adult life after studying propagation and strange radio phenomenon I now realize it is what is called an LDE (Long Delayed Echo).
Funny part is no one knows for sure to this day what causes it, but there are theories.

Have any of you here ever had this happen on the 11 meter band?

Many years later I am glad I had this experience since now I know how rare of an event it is and to think it happened with as little as 4 watts of power into a little whip antenna setup improperly.
 
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nope. never even heard of it.
I have gotten bitched out by a girlfriend because while we were talking on 31 another girl in between our mobiles was on her base piggybacking my signal and bleeding her audio into my signal from channel 13.
"why are you with her? don't lie to me I can hear her talking in the car with you."
 
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i was with a ham doing moon bounce once and as he unkeyed you could catch the very last part of his signal,,, it has something to do with the distance from the earth to the moon and back,,,, i dont know if this had any thing to do with what you experianced or not,,,,,
 
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There is indeed a phenomenon known as LDE or Long Delayed Echos. It is unexplained as of this time. The delay time is variable and it is NOT an echo from the moon. that is a constant time of about 2.5 seconds. LDE signals are generally very much weaker and most often involve directional antennas. Not saying it didn't happen to the OP but it would be highly suspect given the reported signal strength and the low power and crappy antenna installation he was using. Having said that it could have happened.
 
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Yes I have experienced Long delay echo.
About 34 years ago Cycle was high and the dx really cracking.I had a VK novice call and was working 10 meters SSB with a homebrew 4 el Quad and about 30 watts The echo was distinctly dx with that warble quality you some times get with long or multipath signal. Sig strength was about s3 with about 4 or 5 sec delay. I lifted the ptt several times to see what happened ,delay remained constant didn't miss a beat .
.My guess at the time was some kind of simplex repeater.
I believe there are some 11 meter repeaters in service in Europe and would account for phenomenon these days .Now these days digital recorders are common place and simplex repeater boards are available on ebay, back then it would have been difficult to record and play back on the same frequency . The cassette recorder was state of the art and The home computer was just starting . The 5 sec delay would suggest a distance of twice the distance to the Moon and back or several trips around the earth if it was a natural phenomenon.
So yes i believe it can happen and has been documented by others. But most likely cause these days is someone screwing with you.
 
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darklife said:
Story time... I now realize it is what is called an LDE (Long Delayed Echo).
Funny part is no one knows for sure to this day what causes it, but there are theories..
Click to expand...

My theory is that it was a signal from the Starship ENTERPRISE as it was orbiting Uranus, collecting Klingons
 
vkrules said:
The echo was distinctly dx with that warble quality you some times get with long or multipath signal. Sig strength was about s3 with about 4 or 5 sec delay. I lifted the ptt several times to see what happened ,delay remained constant didn't miss a beat .
Click to expand...
^THIS.
This is exactly what I experienced but I swear the echo was even longer. It was too perfect of timing and was there exactly as I lifted the PTT like you. So this leads me to believe to this day that it was the real thing.
Also as I said towards the end I eventually heard the echos fade out just like they were DX, so there is almost no way it was a local. It was the peak of solar cycle 23 to add to it.
 
I've heard of this before but never experienced it. I suppose if your signals are bouncing around in the ionosphere they could experience a delay of some sort and bounce right back into your back yard. I've worked other countries long path when I had a Yagi so it isn't so far fetched that under certain conditions you could hear your own signal.

I would be interested in the phenomena that would slow down radio signals travelling at roughly the speed of light to allow that to happen.
 
RatsoW8 said:
I've heard of this before but never experienced it. I suppose if your signals are bouncing around in the ionosphere they could experience a delay of some sort and bounce right back into your back yard. I've worked other countries long path when I had a Yagi so it isn't so far fetched that under certain conditions you could hear your own signal.

I would be interested in the phenomena that would slow down radio signals travelling at roughly the speed of light to allow that to happen.
Click to expand...

Radio signals do not slow down. They continue at the speed of light but travel a MUCH longer path which accounts for the delay. Signals may travel completely around the world several times. One theory has it that signals may get trapped in a duct and travel almost unimpeded many many times around the world until eventually breaking through and returning to Earth.
 
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