I'm curious: what would a graphic representation of a "hit" or a "really, really interesting signal" look like?

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What a 'hit'would look like would depend on the way the data was displayed. As a simple graph of frequency vs. amplitude it would probably look like a sharp, narrow peak, rising out of the scruff of noise.

In a 'waterfall' display, of frequency vs. time it's expected to be a distinct, straight line within a field of dots, due to noise. The line would presumably slant upward or downward somewhat, as its frequency was Doppler shifted by the relative motion of the Earth, and the source of the signal.

There is no way to say what a "hit" would look like because SETI doesn't look at a single sample (work unit) as being a "hit", but looks for several samples from the same "location" being of a similar nature. David Anderson & Eric Korpela have been working on the correlation process in the background under the "Nebula" heading - Read the latest posts from David Anderson in this thread (https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_forum.php?id=1511) for the current status and a very top level description of the processes being employed. (I'm glad he's kept it as a superficial description as the maths gets well into nose bleed territory very rapidly...)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Slightly related & pardon ignorance being new member again recently. How do I know or SETI@home know when a received data set is noteworthy? I have a dual MS in Telecom, etc. and good at patterns. I received data from Green Bank, WV and processed what I believe to be a noteworthy observation from program and thru visual observations. How would I know for sure, the data reaches the appropriate individuals, etc.? What is auto/manual processes and how much lag time for crunching results, etc.? ty in advance

All the "interesting" signals we detect are held in a very large database, which is used by David Anderson's Nebual process, which then looks for the even more interesting signals - the locations of these very interesting signals will then be subject to a more intensive probe using other telescopes.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I also saw data from Arecibo that resembles the signal from Green Bank in time, etc. I will reply on the wheels of progress to ascertain the road this leads too. I understand that Green Bank has uncovered about 15 hits since operation?

I'm curious as to how many "interesting" signals are found in a given month. Are they rare?

The database contains something around 16 million "pixels", and each pixel will have more than 1 set of data - which is why the next level of the sifting, called "Nebula", is such a complex and massive task.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?