Identify which Big Ear horn received the Wow! signal

Determine whether the Ohio State University Big Ear Radio Observatory’s positive (East) horn or negative (West) horn received the narrowband Wow! signal detected on August 15, 1977, in order to unambiguously fix the right ascension of the source and clarify whether the event was astrophysical or terrestrial in origin.

Background

The Ohio State University Big Ear telescope observed with two feed horns (positive/East and negative/West) that scanned the same sky region about three minutes apart. During the Wow! event, only one horn detected the signal, but the system combined the horn outputs in a way that obscures which horn saw it, creating a fundamental ambiguity.

This uncertainty directly impacts the source’s right ascension and complicates the assessment of whether the event was due to an astrophysical source or radio frequency interference. Resolving which horn detected the signal would remove a principal ambiguity in the event’s localization and interpretation.