Co-ordination with Kepler planet finder

I think searching should be co-ordinated with the Kepler planet finder results. So as soon as Earth like planets are discovered, we should immediatly search that area of space for radio transmissions. Results of new planets found aroung other stars are prolific enough now that this would end a lot of wasted number crunching for not knowing where to look.

I think this would also increase our odds of finding 'ET's phone number' in the lifetimes of those contributing to this project now.

(Just a suggestion)
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seti@home is allowed to collect data piggyback style. When someone is working with the dish seti records as well. We don't really have a choice in the matter. Though in the past they have been able to dedicate some time listening to previous candidate sites
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Proud member of TSWB.

End terrorism by building a school

When more planets like this are confirmed in the future, other frequencies should be examined besides what SETI monitors. I forget what it is, or if there are more than one. It's certainly possible that extraterrestrials are using other frequencies. It shouldn't be difficult to continuously scan all radio frequencies from just one source like this. If I had money I'd certainly have an observatory or two.

No our search is in the "quiet" 1420 Mhz level. searching other areas would force the team to really dig deep since there is so much terrestrial noise being produced at other frequencies
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Proud member of TSWB.

End terrorism by building a school

Don't know what "Gaussian" means in the context of SETI. A gaussian (Bell shaped) curve implies a random process. A random process would tend to rule out intelligence in the signal.

A strong signal yes. But, also some modulation either on-off, phase, frequency or amplitude modulation counting out the prime numbers or the first 50 digits of pi for example.

They won't know who "Us" is until possibly hundreds or thousands of years later or at least 8 years later than they originally sent the message since the nearest star is four light-years away. They are not likely to keep beaming at a far distant planet for this period of time unless they have previously received a signal from us telling them where we are. If they heard our spurious signals then we would have heard them also by now in all likelyhood if they were as far along in technology as we were 100 years ago. Remember there are relatively few stars out to 100 light years from the Earth.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely our random radio signals (TV, radio, etc.) will ever be detected by an alien civilization on their planet. After a few light-years they become indistinguishable from background radiation left over from the Big Bang. We need to intentionally sent an immensely strong signal into space in order for an alien civilization to detect it (to overcome the inverse square law). The same is true on their part in order for us to detect their signals, assuming their regular transmissions aren't much stronger than ours.

It's not enough to simply point a transmitter at the point of light in the sky. Let's say the newly-discovered planet is 1000 light-years away. You need to know where that star will be in 1000 years since the stars in this galaxy are moving (although relatively slowly to us). Then you can transmit in that direction. The alien civilization must also take this into account.

There are still a LOT of unknowns, such as how long radio signals are used by an average civilization, assuming there are others out there. The window of opportunity for them to receive the radio signal may come and go by the time our signal gets there. Instead of radio transmissions they may eventually use neutrinos, or even tachyons (if they exist) to communicate. The same could be true for us. We may advance beyond radio signals by the time their signal gets here. We could think there's nothing there, or they could think there's nothing here because nobody replied.

Neutrinos would allow them to communicate in almost perfect clarity through any object other than a black hole. If they expanded their civilization beyond their home system, tachyons would allow quick communication. Tachyons would probably have other uses for them as well, although it's entirely theoretical. It may take hundreds, or maybe thousands of years to advance that far. Even so, they could miss our radio signal.

One thing is for sure, useful radio communication with an alien civilization can only be done with a relatively nearby system. A long message every 50 years (25 to get there and another 25 to get a response) may be useful only as a news update, although just my guess. It may take that long to understand their language, if it's even possible.

They'd have to send us an immense amount of data with several examples of everything they use to describe something, like a dictionary or key. The color red, for example. If you showed them a circle with the inside colored red and you said the word "red", they still won't know what you're talking about unless you show them many different objects that are red. They can then understand what's common between the objects, the color. If we miss any part of that transmission we won't know what they're talking about. We have no way of telling them what we're missing for 25 years.

One could assume that the alien intelligence already considered this, and broadcasted a long attention-gathering signal ahead of the short block of important data. After that it would repeat the long attention-gathering signal and the short block of data again. They can continue this indefinitely until someone responds long into the future. Of course, they must be certain that this planet they discovered by precise long-range observations has a high chance of supporting life.

Duane, it brings home to you the thought of how remote our chances
are of finding an alien transmission out there. Our best hope is that
if aliens do exist then they know of our possible existence too. To this
end they are actively sending signals to us and hence just time before
we receive any of them.
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The Kite Fliers

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Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.