(meteorobs) Re: Radio accompaniment

[Robert Lunsford]

May I suggest that those observing away from home purchase a portable 
re-chargeable battery with built-in jumper cables. This is a device that I 
keep in my truck and has come in handy on more than one occasion. I dislike 
using my truck to jump people with dead batteries. Instead of using my truck 
I simply use this portable battery and it works like a charm. It keeps a 
charge for three months and can also power various equipment out in the 
field. I purchased mine at the local Costco for $50.

A car radio actually drains very little energy so unless your car battery is 
well past its prime, starting your vehicle several times during a watch 
would actually drain more energy than it replenishes.

Clear Skies!

Bob Lunsford


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce McCurdy" <bmccurdy at telusplanet.net>
To: "Global Meteor Observing Forum" <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 11:29 PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Radio accompaniment


>    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