There are some known Ham radio operators who attest to having picked up signals from Apollo (Paul Wilson, Richard Knadle, Larry Baysinger, Sven Grahn), but none of them can attest to having tracked these probes all the way to the moon and back.
Grahn for example only testifies to having picked up signals from Apollo 17 when it was in earth orbit, when it was on the moon and in lunar orbit. He openly admits to not tracking it the whole way there and back.
Baysinger only received communications from Apollo 11 during the alleged moonwalk, again not the way to the moon and back. Wilson & Knadle received signals from a diversity of Apollo missions2, but again only when the crafts were in lunar orbit – an exception being Apollo 15 in which they received a handful of signals on the alleged flight home. The two were quoted to saying:
“The moon is always in view of two of NASA's primary tracking stations in Spain, Australia and California, but not so for the amateur. Some of the most exciting events and transmissions from the Apollo mission always seem to occur when the moon is below the horizon for the continental United States astronomer!”
Recently, Jarrah met with CSIRO professor
Ray Morris, who as a kid received signals from Apollo 13 – but only during the time they were said to be in earth orbit.
In the nineties, David Percy contacted Jodrell Bank Observatory technician Robert Pitchard. He stated that they too only tracked Apollo when it was close to the moon, not the trip there and back:
“The Moon probes were observed with a 50ft radio telescope which at the frequency used (2300MHz) had a beam width of 5/8ths degrees
In round terms this allowed us to pick up signals from up signals from up to about 1,000 miles above the moon’s surface, although small corrections had to be made to pointing as the probes orbited the Moon.
Voice signals (of good quality) were received from both the orbiting spacecraft and the Lunar Lander but television signals were only picked up from the spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. As we were not actively involved in the tracking of these spacecraft, we did not track them after they had left the Moon. And with regard to Apollo 10, I have no details of any observations, after all this time – the reason escapes me.”
And on the Russian side, for the most part the Soviets had relied heavily on Jodrell Bank just to track their own moon-bound spacecrafts because they lacked the capability to do it themselves (this was discussed in the BBC series,
The Planets). Although later in the early 60s they were able to build deep space network tracking facilities with a 100million kilometre range, none of these radio telescopes were tuneable to the 2.3GHz (2300MHz) signals used by Apollo. Only at the last minute in November 1968 did they manage to equip their
TNA-400* facility in Crimea with suitable receiving equipment.
And even then, because NASA did not supply them with the ballistics data, the Soviets were limited to listening to it during the time Apollos 8, 10, 11 and 12 were supposedly in lunar orbit.
* In Russian. Can be read using
google translate.
Only the NASA Manned Space Flight Network can attest to having tracked these vehicles all the way to the moon and back. This Network comprised of Goldstone Tracking Station in California, the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex, and various facilities in Australia; most notably Parkes Observatory, Honeysuckle Creek and Tidbinbilla. In the case of Parkes, it was (and still is) owned by the Australian government but was under control of and under contract to NASA during the time of the Apollo missions. It was NASA’s very own Robert Taylor who
controlled the release of any data from Parkes during the Apollo 11 mission and his team were responsible for the
reception, recording and transfer of audio, video and telemetry at Parkes. And on the subsequent flights
technicians and engineers from NASA’s Tidbinbilla complex were heavily involved at Parkes. It’s essentially a fox guarding the hen house scenario.{/quote]
