Project Diana remembered

US Army officials back on January 25, 1946 announced the first radio signals had been 'bounced' of the moon, just 60 odd years ago.

Electronic engineers at US Camp Evans achieved this feat, once thought impossible when they punched through the ionosphere with powerful radar waves and bounced the waves off the surface of the moon.

Called Project Diana after the Roman goddess of the moon, this experiment was hailed worldwide as the dawn of the space age and the birth of radar astronomy.

The Ocean-Monmouth Amateur Radio Club have held an open house at the Project Diana site at Camp Evans, showing historic newsreels, photos and equipment used in the actual "first bounce".

Before Project Diana, radio and radar waves could only be bounced off the earth's ionosphere. Today, every satellite depends upon radio and radar passing through the ionosphere. Monitoring hurricanes from space, satellite television and manned space flight communications would have been impossible without Project Diana, according to the InfoAge Web site.

Narelle VK4AY

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia