(meteorobs) Radio accompaniment

Ian & Ronnie Finch ianronny at micronet.net.au
Tue Jan 10 17:06:12 EST 2006


Hi
Iam a real beginner to meteor observing and I have read articles on  
the use of a car radio to help with your observing. I am wandering  
what frequency you use.
Regards Ian
ps. I live in the midnorth of South Australia.
On 10/01/2006, at 5:59 PM, Bruce McCurdy wrote:

>    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
>    *****
>
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