Editing Communication Moon Relay (section)

==Background==
Communication Moon Relay grew out of many ideas and concepts in radio espionage. Some impetus for the project was provided by post-[[World War II]] efforts to develop methods of tracking radio signals, particularly those originating in [[Eastern Europe]] and the [[Soviet Union]]. Other sources included earlier proposals to use the Moon as a radio wave reflector, which date back to 1928.  The first proof of this concept was the [[Project Diana]] program of the [[U.S. Army Signal Corps]] in 1946, which detected [[radar]] waves bounced off the Moon.   This attracted the attention of [[Donald Menzel]]. Menzell was a staff member of the [[Harvard College Observatory]] and a former [[United States Navy Reserve]] commander, who proposed that the Navy undertake a program to use the Moon as a secure communications satellite.

Prior to the Moon Relay project, long distance wireless communication around the curve of the Earth was conducted by [[skywave]] ("skip") transmission, in which radio waves are refracted by the Earth's [[ionosphere]], which was sometimes disrupted by [[solar flare]]s and [[geomagnetic storm]]s.  Before artificial satellites, the Moon provided the only reliable celestial object from which to reflect radio waves to communicate between points on opposite sides of the Earth.

[[Image:Trexler notebook entry.jpg|left|thumb|An entry in Trexler's notebook regarding Moon bounce communications.]]

The developments in Moon circuit communications eventually came to the attention of [[James Trexler]], a radio [[engineer]] at the Naval Research Laboratory. His interest was piqued by a paper published by researchers at an [[ITT Corporation|ITT]] laboratory. Trexler developed plans for a system designed to intercept Soviet radar signals by detecting the transmissions that bounced off the Moon. This program, codenamed "Joe," began making regular observations in August 1949. Within a year, "Joe" was made an official Navy intelligence program, the [[Passive Moon Relay]] (PAMOR).

In September 1950, a new [[Parabola|parabolic]] [[Antenna (radio)|antenna]] for the PAMOR project was completed at [[Stump Neck, Maryland]]. The first tests of this antenna were impressive; the returning signal was of much higher [[fidelity]] than expected. This presented the possibility of using a Moon circuit as a communications circuit. Unfortunately for PAMOR, collecting Soviet radar signals would require a larger antenna. Efforts began to have such an antenna constructed at [[Sugar Grove, West Virginia]].