<<<<<<4. ... Does the military not use wavelengths like 107 MHz? Anyway, can you pick up local radio stations on, say, the Arecibo array? In the movie, they've given him a really huge dish... >>>>>>

<<<The RF spectrum is divided into ranges that are assigned to various uses... like CB radio, FM radio, TV broadcast, cellular phones, etc. The military owns big chunks of the spectrum, and woe to you if you should interfere with them.

However, there's no reason that the military couldn't broadcast in the FM band if they wanted to, or accidentally if their equipment was malfunctioning.

You can be sure that radiotelescopes would be designed specifically to exclude the wavelengths used for terrestrial broadcasting... that's just annoying noise to an astronomer.>>>

When I was in the US Army Infantry we carried a backpack radio, AN/PRC-77 or something like that, that could reach into the commecial band. I could run the freq selector all the way up to near the top and pick up the local NBC station in Ft. Campbell, KY.

Kizarvexis