(meteorobs) Monitoring solution for radio meteor observers in North America

[meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com]

  Good bit of advice, but make sure you end-up with the R820T tuner.
  The FC0012/13 and ET4000 are ~45Mhz-1.7Ghz, just above Snotel.  I had
  to build an upconverter for my FC0013 dongles.

  It's also nice that they have a diode for ESD protection already
  soldered-in.  After blowing up a couple of chips I figured out I
  needed to solder a diode in to protect mine.

  The MCX is also a nice touch because it's easy and cheap to adapter
  the MCX to BNC, F, or UHF to support a large directional antenna.

  I might have to look at a couple of those myself and save my
  upconverter and FC0013's for shortwave listening.

Oh - one other thought:  Check out SDR# (sdrsharp), a fully
open-source package that is pretty easy to grock.   I've been working
on whacking some meteor filtering and counting code into it for a
week or two now, off and on.

http://sdrsharp.com

 --- Jodie



> Thursday, December 20, 2012, 6:48:50 PM, you wrote:

>> At 11:23 AM 12/19/2012, you wrote:
>>>Status of US radio meteor monitoring:
>>>
>>>For anyone in North America there is a good probability of doing
>>>research-grade radio meteor observations using the SCAN and SNOTEL
>>>meteor burst communication network.
>>>
>>>Transmit frequency is : 40.67 MHz CW     This is an excellent reflective
>>>frequency for meteors. The transmitters are on full time and are
>>>powerful at 1200 kW.

>> For anyone that might be unsure of how to receive frequencies in this 
>> range.... especially on a budget.... there is an interesting and VERY 
>> low cost solution called Software Defined Radio.  Basically, the 
>> receiver hardware consists of a tuner and digitizer, and all the 
>> "heavy lifting" (filtering, tuning, processing, detection, etc) is 
>> done on your PC.  This used to be a rather expensive solution.... at 
>> least on a par with a decent scanner like the Icom R-20.  But 
>> recently, it has been discovered that some types of inexpensive USB 
>> TV receiver dongles can be used as the hardware for a SDR.  Coupled 
>> with one of several free SDR software packages, you can end up with a 
>> receiver that covers 25MHz through 1700MHz and receives all modes.

>> I have been experimenting with a combination of this $16.95 (free 
>> shipping) dongle from NooElec

>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Newsky-TV28T-v2-USB-DVB-T-RTL-SDR-Receiver-RTL2832U-R820T-Tuner-MCX-Input-/160896092118?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25762787d6

>> and HDSDR software (free)

>> http://www.hdsdr.de/index.html

>> This <$20 combination, when connected to a suitable antenna, produces 
>> results that are comparable to a much more expensive receiver.  Until 
>> now, I have been using my Kenwood TS-480 ham transciever, which has 
>> an excellent receiver.  The dongle + HDSDR solution produces results 
>> that are nearly identical.  I can either route the audio from HDSDR 
>> to Spectrum Lab via Virtual Audio Cable, or analyze it directly in 
>> HDSDR, which includes both RF and Audio waterfalls.  Around here 
>> (Detroit area) I can still see meteors on analog TV Channel 2a (tune 
>> to 55.239MHz USB) and 2c (tune to 55.259MHz USB) from transmitters in 
>> (assumed) Canada.  In the final analysis, this SDR setup is not 
>> cutting edge performance, but it is quite decent.  And due to the 
>> extremely wide range of receive frequencies and processing functions, 
>> it has other possible uses (like Jupiter emissions).  Best of all, it 
>> is almost free!

>> Beware of some TV dongles.  Some of them do not include ESD 
>> protection and you can EASILY destroy the front end by touching the 
>> antenna.  I have discovered that all dongles sold by NooElec either 
>> contain ESD protection from the factory or have it added by NooElec.

>> Paul


>> Paul Goelz
>> pgoelz at comcast.net
>> Rochester Hills, MI
>> www.pgoelz.com 

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