The piece seemed a bit wooly to me. This bit caused a little twinge of pain:
Signals from such a transmitter placed on a planet spinning around a foreign star would drift in time when observed from Earth, "the same as when an ambulance goes past you, the sound of it shifts from very high to very low"
What's wrong with saying Doppler, frequency, or pitch maybe?
So, it is nothing about transiting, and all about us being close to the ecliptic plane of the system. Being a little off the ecliptic, so there were no transits or even occultations, would barely affect Doppler measurements.
Signals from such a transmitter placed on a planet spinning around a foreign star would drift in time when observed from Earth, "the same as when an ambulance goes past you, the sound of it shifts from very high to very low"
What's wrong with saying Doppler, frequency, or pitch maybe?