(meteorobs) Radio accompaniment

[Bruce McCurdy]

    Lew wrote:

> Bruce, I found this a really neat suggestion, especially for solo 
> observing!
> Now I believe you've done some radiometeor work with various non- and
> semi-directional antennae in the past. But is this "car radio 
> accompaniment"
> using one of these special antennae, or just the car's normal antenna?

    Just the car's normal antenna. It seems the omnidirectional antenna 
works about as well as the semi-directional Yagi I have on my home detector. 
I don't have any foolproof method of counting "hits" on the car radio at a 
dark site and no SkyPipe files to compare, however I have spent a fair bit 
of time listening in at home, and the rates of "loud meteors" are certainly 
comparable. The home detector might be more sensitive to faint bursts which 
are hard to hear through a car window, especially in a group when folks are 
chatting (or hollering about a meteor seen at that exact moment, although 
usually the humans are a split second late). What I can say with some degree 
of confidence is that (in my location) car radio rates consistently exceed 
visual rates by a factor of three or so, more if observing conditions are 
compromised.

     There is certainly room for improvement in my technique though. It 
should be relatively simple to count both radio and visual and record both 
in my standard 10-minute bins, which I will try to do more assiduously in 
future. A further refinement would be to isolate those meteors seen and 
heard simultaneously. For a single observer I would guesstimate this occurs 
for a third of visual meteors, and a significantly smaller fraction of radio 
meteors since they are more plentiful. A group of observers will 
collectively have a higher percentage of matches, which only stands to 
reason.

    For solo observing I really like the radio accompaniment as you put it, 
or in my words, my "observing buddy". It is easy to visualize a meteor from 
a good radio burst, and it can be quite a thrill when one sees and hears a 
nice one at the same instant. However, the point was made here and is well 
taken, that one must be careful straining a car battery at a remote 
location, especially if alone.

    Bruce
    *****