MEET THE GEEK WHO TRACKS ROGUE SATELLITES WITH COAT HANGERS

EVERY 95 MINUTES, the Chinese satellite Zhuhai-1 02 makes a full pass around the planet, its solar-panel arms extending from its boxy body as it observes Earth. Sometimes, its path takes it over Pueblo, Colorado. There, more than 300 miles below, Mike Coletta’s receiving station can pick up Zhuhai’s transmissions. Because as sophisticated as space technology is, the terrestrial tech necessary to make contact with celestial satellites is surprisingly low. Coletta just has four TV antennas—the kind that look like 2-D pine trees—each pointed in a cardinal direction. They’re bolted into place along garage beams, a patio post, and the rooftop of his house.

Inside his home office, on Tuesday, Coletta waits for Zhuhai's signals to appear. He sits in front of a laptop and an iPad, a big shelved monitor hovering above. Coletta has, since 2012, spent his free time eavesdropping on the sky, picking up satellite signals—signals that, for the most part, were never meant for him. He’s listened in with an antenna made of coat-hangers and moulding. He's done it with a rabbit-ear antenna, and with wire taped to yard-sticks. And now, he primarily does it with his quartet of TV antennas—the fanciest setup he's ever had, and still a steal at around $300.

Turning to the iPad, he watches an icon that shows Zhuhai's path across a digital globe. It hops its way in discrete digital steps across a red ellipse that delineates his antenna's field of view. He fiddles with the laptop's settings, adjusting the displayed frequency range and the volume. Soon, a staccato leitmotif comes from the speakers, accompanied by little line segments on the screen—the kinds of data he sonifies, then posts to Twitter and, in earlier days, to his websitewww.gosatwatch.com, like little space symphonies. This signal looks and sounds like Morse code.

“That’s the beacon,” he explains.

But soon the signal has faded out, as Zhuhai-1 02 passes beyond the domain of Coletta’s detector. He looks over and smiles from inside his beard, then looks back down to see whether another sat might soon pass over.