"When I first heard the news on the radio, all they said was that the USSR had placed an artificial satellite in orbit. It was later (the same night I think) that they started playing the "beep-beep-beep.” The sound of that transmission just made it even more scary." - Jerry Bostick, former NASA Range Safety Representative, Head of the Flight Dynamics Officer Section, and Flight Dynamics Branch Chief
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Exploded View of Sputnik 1 - Courtesy of NASA
Sputnik (Russian for "companion") was launched from the Baikonar Cosmodrome at Tyuratam, Kazakhstan, then a member of the Soviet Union, on October 4, 1957. 58 centimeters (22.8 inches) in diameter and weighing 83.6 kilograms (183.9 pounds), it contained two radio transmitters emitting the "beep beep beep" that shocked the world. Sputnik II containing the first biological space traveler, the dog Laika, followed on November 3, 1957. The United States had several chances to beat the USSR into space, but didn't take them.
"HAMS"
To hear Sputnik’s transmission in 1957, all that was needed was a ham radio. Amateur operators all across the U.S. helped track Sputnik using their radios as it flew overhead.
"In New York City, on 'Sputnik night,' phone calls poured into the offices of the Hayden Planetarium and the American Museum of Natural History. Practically all were from people seeking more information than the Soviet bulletin to the American press had provided-mostly amateur astronomers and ham radio operators eager to get down to the happy business of trying to acquire and track the world's first man-made satellite... On Sputnik night the national IGY committee got in touch with the American Radio Relay League in West Hartford, Connecticut, calling on its 70,000 members-all 'hams'-to lend assistance... General Medaris' public relations officer hurried into the room. 'General,' he said, breaking into the conversation without apology. 'it has just been announced over the radio that the Russians have put up a successful satellite! It's broadcasting signals on a common frequency, and at least one of our local hams' has been listening to it.'" - from "From Sputnik I to TV-3"