I have recently joined the SETI programme, and my PC has so far handled a decent amount of information.

The feedback information given to the volunteer with regard to the signal analysed, is quite sparse to say the least, but nevertheless I have noted a pattern of sorts.

I have never been given any recent signal to analyse, being instead relegated to analysing signals dating back to 2003 and 2004. I have also noted that the most signals' frequencies appear to be in the same range. Perhaps SETI receivers are focused on a specific range of frequencies, or else I am persistently given to analyse signals coming from a specific range of frequencies.

My assessment is as follows:

a. We are given to analyse signals that have been deemed as having about 1-5% chance of being of any interest whatsoever to SETI. In other words, they are dumping their trashcans on us.

b. In introducing the volunteer SETI programme, they merely tried to "make the best of what they have and won't use". In other words, signals that have been deemed as very low priority, are casually tossed upon the volunteers lest they stumble upon something interesting.

In short, I think that they sought to cover the "1%" chance. Namely, that all that garbage archives of signals that would never be analysed due to them having been marked as "low priority", might have hidden something interesting.

Your thoughts?

On a side note, I really enjoy being a volunteer in this programme, and dedicate part of my PC's CPU to something that could be potentially useful for mankind.

Oh dear :o)

The signals we're looking at might be from several (or lots of) lightyears away.
They have travelled an according number of years to reach us.
So there's no distinction between "old" and "new" data.
The sequence of the data we get is pretty random, and we're getting _all_ relevant data that comes in from arecibo.

The whole purpose of the seti program is to decide if there's something valuable to be found in this data.
Because of the large computing power needed to analyze the data, nobody knows this before _WE_ have crunched them.

Regards Hans

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Oh dear :o)

The signals we're looking at might be from several (or lots of) lightyears away.
They have travelled an according number of years to reach us.
So there's no distinction between "old" and "new" data.
The sequence of the data we get is pretty random, and we're getting _all_ relevant data that comes in from arecibo.

The whole purpose of the seti program is to decide if there's something valuable to be found in this data.
Because of the large computing power needed to analyze the data, nobody knows this before _WE_ have crunched them.

Regards Hans

I'm sorry, perhaps I have failed to express myself properly.

I am merely trying to point out the difference between:

1. A signal X that is marked as having been recorded on the "25th July, 2003".
2. A signal Y that is marked as having been recorded on the "16 August, 2004".
3. A signal Z that is marked as having been recorded on the "5th October, 2005".

Based on the date of recording, it is reasonable to assume that:

a. Signal X is older than signal Y, because signal X has been recorded by the SETI receivers a good deal of time earlier than signal Y.

b. Signal Z is newer than signal X and Y, because it has been recorded later than both.

Since there is no way for the volunteer to calculate exactly how far a signal has travelled before it reached earth, then a reasonable means of classifying signals, is by using the date that they have been recorded on earth.

------------->I am still of the opinion that, SETI experts have a way to distinguish between "promising" and "non-promising" signals. Promising signals are promptly analysed in situ, while "non-promising" signals are relegated to the volunteers, which is what I have been trying to say expressed in a more simple fashion.

My thoughts?

I get WU's from '03, 04, (in fact, most are from '03 or '04) and I actually got one from '05 recently.

The tapes are split fairly randomly, there is no bias whatsoever, they just pick the tapes from the box and stick them in the machine.

Keep a watch on the WU's downloaded to your machine, and you'll see I'm right. It doesn't matter where you are or what you do, you'll get the same as the rest of us. I seem to remember that they still have tapes from 1999 that haven't been analysed yet (although i've not had anything much before '03). The data comes from one source (the Arecibo telescope).

Don't worry about it - "live long and crunch" to quote a fellow cruncher.

Dec.

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Matt L. does the loading of the tapes into the tape reader. A couple of comments from a post that he made once upon a time.

When the tapes arrive from Aricebo, they are thrown into a big box. When he needs a tape to load, he reaches into the box without looking and pulls one out. There is then a quick scan for noise, and if it is too noisy, it is put aside. It was determined that some of the tapes that were put aside might have some data between the noise, so they were loaded again and sent out.

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BOINC WIKI

[quote------------->I am still of the opinion that, SETI experts have a way to distinguish between "promising" and "non-promising" signals. Promising signals are promptly analysed in situ, while "non-promising" signals are relegated to the volunteers, which is what I have been trying to say expressed in a more simple fashion.[/quote]
There is no way to "quick run" the tapes to check for anything except noise. We all get what we get, as John VII said the tapes are picked from a box at random and then given a quick check for too much noise, those tapes are now being checked by us users, and then the tapes are split in to work units for we users to crunch. There is no bias as to who gets which unit to crunch, you have just as much likelihood of getting "the signal" as the next person that signs up or the very first person that signed up. Luck of the draw! ALL units need to be crunched, os just because someone finds "the signal" it does not mean that that or another signal is not on the next tape!
Tapes are slpit like this "Note: Each tape contains approximately 33000 blocks (1049600 bytes in size representing 1.7 seconds of telescope data). The splitter reads about 48 blocks at a time and converts them into 256 workunits, which eventually get transitioned into 1024 results to send to our clients."
If you go to the main Boinc page here: http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/ and click on server status you will see what tapes they are working on now and more info. They are currently working on:
21oc03aa, 23ja04ab, 24my03aa and 30oc03ab. It looks like 21 oct 03, 23 jan 04, 24 may 03 and 30 oct 03. We all get our units from these tapes.
The aa and ab are their to indicate the first tape of the date is aa, if there is more for that same date then the next tape would be tape ab, then ac etc.
And just as an aside, yes someone physically goes to Arecibo and hand carries a box of tapes back to Berkeley.

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Matt L. does the loading of the tapes into the tape reader. A couple of comments from a post that he made once upon a time.

When the tapes arrive from Aricebo, they are thrown into a big box. When he needs a tape to load, he reaches into the box without looking and pulls one out. There is then a quick scan for noise, and if it is too noisy, it is put aside. It was determined that some of the tapes that were put aside might have some data between the noise, so they were loaded again and sent out.

I'll bet the last few tapes are of drum tracks for his latest cd. Could have swore that I saw a snare track or was that a high hat in there somewhere.

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IAS - Where Space Is Golden!

Matt L. does the loading of the tapes into the tape reader.
......

I'll bet the last few tapes are of drum tracks for his latest cd. Could have swore that I saw a snare track or was that a high hat in there somewhere.

LOLLL! :-D

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

I'll bet the last few tapes are of drum tracks for his latest cd. Could have swore that I saw a snare track or was that a high hat in there somewhere.

So, should he be concerned or happy about the fact that nobody reported any consistent pattern or rythm in those tracks? :)

On topic: I agree that the date of the recording is irrelevant, because of the time any signal has travelled through space. Regarding that signals seem to originate from about the same places in the sky, I think they're scanning from zero degrees and outwards on both sides of equator to 30 degrees. When that sector is scanned, they'll move on from 30-60 and so on.

On topic: I agree that the date of the recording is irrelevant, because of the time any signal has travelled through space. Regarding that signals seem to originate from about the same places in the sky, I think they're scanning from zero degrees and outwards on both sides of equator to 30 degrees. When that sector is scanned, they'll move on from 30-60 and so on.

If I read the OP correctly he was trying to say that because he was a newbie he got 2003 tapes while those that have been around awhile got 2005 tapes. His assumption was that he was doing 2003 tapes so Berkeley could check his machine to make sure it was up to snuff.
I tried to explain that that is not the case.

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Has Moulder looked into this scenario yet? ;)

Seriously.....If this weren't a random thing they were doing here then we would not be needed.

To use Saganese..."There are billions and billions of signals out there to analyze" so if they even could "pick out" the more promising ones..see above.
All of these need to be analyzed and it takes great amounts of computing power to do it.

Maybe, if the signal came in like it did in "Contact", yeh, we would not see it necessarily.

At first.

At least.

I hope.

Just a thought.

Where the hell is Moulder?! heehee ;)

Alex:)>

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be our fwend at..http://www.myspace.com/bandescandar