meteor scatter

[kc9cra]

One thing I have never been able to confirm, is a meteor scatter hit on an fm station. I'm sure it has happened to me, because I can remember a couple of times it happened before I knew what meteor scatter was, but now, I'm really curious about it. The concept is interesting to me.

First of all, I like listening to catch those momentary bursts of audio. I also like the process of researching to findout exactly which station I have picked up, but of course, the most atractive part of this is the stations I might possibly receive.

I don't have much as far as cash, but maybe I can find a likeminded friend in case the only affective way to pick these signals up is with expensive equipment or a big outdoor tower.

I'm hoping some folks here can give me some pointers on the best way to receive these meteor scatter catches. I read somewhere that you won't receive anything with just a telescopic whip. What if I climb this hill in my neighborhood? I go up there, and can pick-up multiple fm's from up to about 170 miles away as the crow flies on a regular basis. I use a Kaito ka1102 portable radio. I tilt it one direction and another, and can pick-up two or three stations on one frequency in many cases. Might climbing this hill help me?

I have also noticed that the best fm receivers by far are vehicle radios. A friend of mine said that you can even remove it from the car and it still receives that well, but I'm not sure, because I've never done that. I'm wondering if I find a friend with a car, I'm blind, so the state of Indiana hesitates to issue me a license, and we can hangout during a meteor shower. They can watch the sky while I tune the radio. Just my thoughts.

I'd like to hear yours. This is something I've never done before, and I am really eager to catch something. There's a shower in April coming up which is supposed to provide some fun.

Something else someone out there might be able to help me with, there's a comit passing near the earth in March. Will that comit's dust trail make contact with the earth? If so, when? That might be an even earlier shower which I could try to enjoy.

 

[n0nhp]

My best luck at FM broadcast meteor scatter has been while camping out and the nearest FM transmitter is about 70 miles from me. There is no reason a whip will not work in a low RF environment. The problem is if you are in an urban or suburban environment where the background noise will swamp most signals.
Camping I use an old Icom R-100 with a 60" whip in a Larson 1/4 wave NMO base. With this setup I can just barely make out a few stations across the band. By tuning one that is not moving the s-meter and leaving it there the signal will suddenly change format and I know I have a meteor trail. I am very seldom lucky enough to get a station ID during an event but I log signal strength and station format if I can.
Something fun to do while cooking dinner or playing a game in the evening.

Edit: This may be a good use for my RTL SDR dongle! I had not thought too much about that. By using the dongle you can watch up to three channels and see the signals come up. Even record the baseband and be able to re-play to try to ID.

Bruce

 

[kc9cra]

Thanks for the info. I live in an area with a lot of stations, but getting out of the city helps a lot for intermod. Where I live, if I put the whip antenna all the way up, one station bleeds all over the band. There are a couple others that do it too, but WIKY is the worst.

I'm curious about that comit though. I'm not sure if anybody in this forum has any information about where it's going, but I'd like to know about it's dust trail. That's what usually causes meteor showers.

 

[n7lxi]

There's a lot of good info here: http://www.wtfda.org/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Sorry for any spelling errors.

 

[k9rzz]

I second the vote on WTFDA.org, go to the forums section, http://forums.wtfda.org/forum.php

That's where the FM DXers hang out.

The best way to catch meteor scatter on FM BC is to record the audio over several hours in the mornings while listening to a quiet frequency. A low dipole is a good antenna since higher antennas tend to pick up distant stations via ground wave or tropo. Use an audio recording program like Audacity or CoolEdit where you can quickly scan several hours of recording visually, and quickly pick out the pings and burns.

It's a lot of fun!

 

[KC4RAF]

KC8CRA, the comet you mention:

Comet Pan-STARRS that you are interested in will be too far away for it’s tail to affect radio transmissions here on earth. If by chance earth does pass through it’s tail, there will be little to no ice left in it. There will be other debris more than likely, but of very little use for RF purpose.
Comet ISON, which appears in November this year may be a different story. I’ve not yet seen the track of this comet, but if you Google that name, you may pull up the track for it.
HTH.

 

[n0nhp]

Well, just back from my camping trip and I did take my RTL along for some quiet RF monitoring.
In that environment the meteor pings were very obvious as were aircraft reflections.
Here is a screen shot of one of the pings.
I did not get any that were long enough or timed right to get a station ID.
I was tuned to a translator that was just strong enough to get reasonable audio but weak enough that a ping would over-ride it (It was the strongest signal on the band).

Bruce

 

[Rt169Radio]

So meteor scatters pick up radio signals and carry them? Not sure what they do actually.

 

[eorange]

A streaking meteor leaves a portion of the atmosphere ionized in its wake. Radio signal propagation is then enhanced during this very brief time (think seconds), for that particular region in the atmosphere.

 

[N8IAA]

So meteor scatters pick up radio signals and carry them? Not sure what they do actually.

Actually, they reflect the signal. Allowing it to be heard from greater distances. I've used meteor scatter on 2 meter SSB many years ago to talk to other hams. QRP was the way to go
Larry

 

[n0nhp]

On the spectrum above, another station "captured" my receiver you can see the wider, brighter area with the other signal. The translator was a PBS news program and the foreign station was music. You can also see the adjacent channels showing a signal trying to come up as well as the darker area as the AGC on the receiver shut down due to the stronger signal. You can also see the differences in distance as the signals come up and die at slightly different times.

Bruce