THE PHOENIX SEARCH RESULTS AT PARKES

For 16 weeks (February to June of 1995). Project Phoenix had the exclu sive use of the 64 m Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Austra lia, as well as another element of the Australian Telescope National F acility (ATNF), the 22 m Mopra telescope, 200 km to the north at Coona barabran. With these two telescopes, we conducted a targeted search of nearly two hundred solar-type stars covering the frequency range from 1.2-3 GHz. The signal detection system described in the paper by Dreh er[1] was optimized to detect narrowband signals (presumed to be trans mitted by another technological civilization) originating in the vicin ity of these targets. The system was sensitive to signals that were co ntinuously present, or pulsed regularly, even if their frequencies dri fted, or changed slowly in time. Many signals of precisely this nature were detected-coming from our own technology! All manner of transmitt ers, from microwave ovens to satellite downlinks, are rapidly making t his naturally quiet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum extremely noisy. The use of the two widely separated telescopes as a pseudo-inte rferometer was essential to discriminate against signals of terrestria l origin. The performance of the system and the results of the observi ng campaign are presented in this paper, while the cooperative science observations that were undertaken with Australian PIs are described i n a companion paper. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserve d.