Intersting post for more than one reason. The YL you mention sounds
like she was seeking either (a) extraterrestrial life signals or (b)
signals from unusual, sporadic or random episodes, such as supernovae
or gamma ray bursters. Both are radioastronomy of a sort, but the
latter is more likely to achieve positive results than the former.

To my mind, gamma ray bursters are the most amazing and somewhat
frightening phenomena out there - the energy unleashed by one of these
events is incomprehensible.

Bruce Jensen