The TAM (Teen-Age Message)


The TAM was created by Russian teens in Moscow Center of Teen Activity and was transmitted at 18:00 UT on August 29, 2001 from the 70-m dish of Evpatoria Deep Space Center to the Sun-like star HD 197076 in the Dolphin Constellation. The total duration of the transmission was 2 hours 12 minutes.
View the complete schedule of TAM sessions


The message consists of three distinct parts:
  1. Sounding Section -- coherent signal with slow Doppler wavelength tuning to imitate the transmission from Sun's center (10 min)
  2. Analog Section -- Theremin concert to Aliens (15 min)
  3. Digital Section -- Message: Logo of TAM, Greeting to Aliens both in Russian and English, Image Glossary (70 min).

The Coherent Sounding Signal was transmitted in order to help Aliens detect the message and to investigate some radio propagation effects in the interstellar medium.



The Analog Information represents music, performed on the Theremin.
This musical instrument produces quasi sinusoidal signal, which is easily detectable across interstellar distances
(see the Arecibo Proposal submitted on 4 July 2000 for details).

There were 7 musical compositions in the 1st Theremin Concert for Aliens:
  1. Melody of Russian romance "Egress alone I to the ride"
  2. Beethoven. Finale of the 9th Symphony.
  3. Vivaldi. Seasons. March. Allegro.
  4. Saen-Saens. Swan.
  5. Rakhmaninov. Vokalise.
  6. Gershwin. Summertime
  7. Melody of Russian folk-song "Kalinka-Malinka"
View SONOGRAMS of the Theremin music.
The Concert program was composed by Russian teens.
The Theremin performers were Lidia Kavina, Yana Aksenova and Anton Kerchenko from the Moscow Theremin Center.


The Digital Information includes the Logo of TAM, Greetings from teens to Aliens, written both in Russian and English, and an Image Glossary. The total size of the digital information is 648,220 bits and was transmitted at a rate 100 bits per second. This section was composed by teens from different sites of Russia - Moscow. Kaluga, Zelenogorsk, Voronezh.
The 28 images follow in the menu to the left.


The Scientific Head of TAM is Dr. Alexander L. Zaitsev
He can be contacted by email at alzaitsev@yahoo.com or alzaitsev@ms.ire.rssi.ru

Read the complete abstract of the project (submitted to the IAA SETI Meeting 2001, Touluse, France) NEXT
(this is an English translation from the original Russian)