(meteorobs) Nice night for scatter data!

[James Beauchamp]

Hi all.  It was a great night for radio observation of Space Radar scatter.  I've yet to see hits of such magnitude and structure.  One event was so powerful it "pegged" the S meter and stayed for tens of seconds.  Multiple events with defined spectral structure, indicating good fragmentation.
 
The album is posted here:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036387&id=1122357299&l=eb1b8d693a

I improved the antenna setup a week ago with a reflector screen and a mesh screen to reduce signal from air traffic.  
 
The setup is working extremely well.  Next step will be incorporation of a BW CCD camera to catch the bright ones.  I'm seeing about one large, bolide-like hit per night.
 
Note - this scatter configuration can only detect meteor events that cross the "Fence" at meteor heights, within my field of view (i.e. a rather narrow "strip" at 45 degrees up, to the south).  Therefore calculation of hit rates are not easy to do.