The big dish antenna at Stanford University (visible from I-280) was, among many other things, used to monitor Soviet radar signals from Sary Shagan in Kazakhst

The big dish antenna at Stanford University (visible from I-280) was, among many other things, used to monitor Soviet radar signals from Sary Shagan in Kazakhstan, that bounced off the moon some of the time. The wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Dish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Dish links to: https://web.archive.org/web/20201108114110/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol11no2/html/v11i2a05p_0001.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20201108114110/https://www.cia.g... which has this tidbit which explains why it works as well as it does when it works: "Fortunately for us, the moon appears only slightly rough to radio waves; most of the reflected energy comes back from an area at the near point just a few miles in diameter. The bulk of the energy striking farther around on the side is reflected out into space and never returns to earth."