Page "Grote Reber" Paragraph 9

Starting in 1951, he received generous support from the Research Corporation in New York, and moved to Hawaii.

In the 1950s, he wanted to return to active studies but much of the field was already filled with very large and expensive instruments.

Instead he turned to a field that was being largely ignored, that of medium frequency ( hectometre ) radio signals in the 0. 5 — 3 MHz range, around the AM broadcast bands.

However, signals with frequencies below 30 MHz are reflected by an ionized layer in the Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere.

In 1954, Reber moved to Tasmania, the southernmost state of Australia, where he worked with Bill Ellis at the University of Tasmania.

There, on very cold, long, winter nights the ionosphere would, after many hours shielded from the sun's radiation by the bulk of the Earth, ' quieten ' and de-ionize, allowing the longer radio waves into his antenna array.

Reber described this as being a " fortuitous situation ".

Tasmania also offered low levels of man-made radio noise, which permitted reception of the faint signals from outer space.