Re: SETI Why is it so quiet at the "water hole"?

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On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Larry Klaes wrote:

> >If any of this cock-eyed theory is correct, why are we looking in the
> >water hole for the very low level signals of an extrasolar
> >civilization?"

• the water hole absorbs any long-distance signals
• meaning we can only stuff from nearby
• we can only "communicate" with ETIs that are near enough that the round-trip doesn't take more than a generation or two
• we have very primitive radio equipment so we want to use a low-noise band (or maybe radio doesn't get any better and we're stuck with such a band forever)

These things would make the water hole a very very suitable place to start out scanning for ETIs. If any ETIs exist nearby we might find them this way, if they don't exist or are using something complely beyond our imagination, well, then we're screwed anyway :)

Rik

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