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I was 11 then. I have a feeling the actual landing was early morning in the UK, not sure I actually saw that. I'm afraid my dominant memory is the bleep they h
by keithpeter 14y ago
I was 11 then. I have a feeling the actual landing was early morning in the UK, not sure I actually saw that.
I'm afraid my dominant memory is the bleep they had between the voice from the moon and the reply from Houston. A fraction of a second long, and a bit higher than E above middle C. I can still hear that now, with the sort of echo at the end from the satellite relay I suppose.
Dad (born 1930s, RAF technician and then radio repairs) was really excited by it all and loved the technology. Grandad (born 1890s, trained as blacksmith, operated a static steam engine, the kind that powers a mill through drive belts) found it sort of funny. Mum liked it when they got out of the capsules on the aircraft carrier.
- trothamel 14y agoThose beeps are known as Quindar tones, and were used to mute and unmute the radio transmissions. http://www.ehartwell.com/Apollo17/MissionTranscriptCollection.htm http://www.ehartwell.com/Apollo17/MissionTranscriptCollectio...
- keithpeter 14y ago"Because replacement parts are no longer available, an "out-of-band signaling" system was installed in 1998 for the transmitters located in the U.S. This system uses a continuous tone that is below the normal audio frequency range. When the tone is present, the transmitters are keyed. When the tone is not present, the transmitters are unkeyed. It worked fine, but the Astronaut Office complained about the lack of tones which everyone had become accustomed to as an alert that a transmission was about to start. So, the Quindar tone generator, which was still installed in case it was necessary to key the transmitters at an overseas site, was re-enabled. " Wonderful link, thanks. The quote above almost rivals Primo Levi's story about the paint recipe in The Periodic Table.