Some people like to talk on the telephone, but members of the Penn State Amateur Radio Club enjoy communicating to other countries and states by bouncing waves off the moon.

This experiment is generally known as EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) or Moonbounce, said Kunio Mitsuma, vice president of the Penn State Amateur Radio Club.

"We do not make conversation, because of the marginality of the experiment," Mitsuma said. "We just signal each other. We just send a designated letter back -- like 'R' for received."

The international communication involves transmitting a 144MHz (VHF or Very High Frequency) high-power signal toward the moon and letting it bounce off the lunar surface. As the signal comes back to the Earth, group members are able to talk to other ham radio operators around the globe, Mitsuma said.

On Sunday, club members tried to contact East Germany, Finland, Denmark and Texas. Although they were unable to reach these places because of bad conditions in the ionosphere, they did hear from an EME fanatic in Texas. The Texan operator has 48 antennas which take up about an acre of land, said Dale Clement, the club's technical adviser.

"The experiment is a very marginal thing," Mitsuma said. "It is not like talking on the phone. We use Morse code because there is lots of cosmic noise."

Another reason that it is marginal is because of the distance the signal must travel -- about a half-million miles, he said, explaining, "When the astronauts were on the moon, the signal had to only travel one half of the distance. Our signals must travel to the moon and back."

Another problem is that when the signal hits the moon, much of the signal is absorbed, because the moon is a poor reflector.

To strengthen their signal, radio operators use large antennas and sensitive receivers, he said. "We use an antenna about five times larger than a T.V. antenna. Some people use antennas so large that it has to be moved by a tractor trailer," he added.

Mitsuma called the experiment an historic achievement in Pennsylvania.

"We feel like we are on top of the world, because of technological achievement. This was not possible a few years ago," he said.

Other club members also expressed enthusiasm about the Moonbounce.

David Sibley, the chief operator, said, "It is fun, because we are making a very long distance conversation. We are interested in doing this for ourselves. We built a lot of our own equipment."

Clement said, "It is something that not too many people do. When I was little I remember people talking about this. No one could do it except the government. When someone says you can't do something, what do you do? It is a challenge. If it were easy, I'd probably lose interest."

The radio station, K3CR, is the oldest radio station in Pennsylvania and one of the oldest stations in the world, group members said. It has been operated by the Penn State Amateur Radio Club since 1965 and has been on the air since December 1909.