(meteorobs) The best Meteor detector on Earth

[Jay Salsburg]

Well! Thank you Samuel for telling me the NAVSPASUR System is going away, so
I will not waste any more time on building a receiver for it. This is what
Networking is all about; People helping People. The idea of sharing DATA is
still valid no matter what System is in place. The EESA is building a Test
RADAR for Space Situational Awareness (SSA) in France using 400+ MHz for a
Bistatic RADAR. Used for tracking Hazards to Satellites, I assume this is
what the USA is going to do.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMFRLAYT6H_index_0.html

On the idea of 6 meter beacons, I have investigated the concept and have two
camps of thinking. 

The first is what others are doing in Europe, with a single Static 50 MHz
beacon and many Forward Scatter receivers.

The second idea are Pulse-Doppler RADARs at 50 MHz, perhaps in a network,
not beacons. I am not familiar with the Laws/Rules governing the use of
Amateur Bands but suspect there may be some restrictions using the 50 MHz
band for pulse RADAR. Perhaps someone out there can bring me up to speed on
this.

Thinking out loud... Building a Pulse-Doppler RADAR is not out of the
picture. The advantage of a Pulse-Doppler RADAR over Forward Scatter or
Bistatic RADAR is worth the effort. To be a Network, you need many of them.
Pulse-Doppler RADAR provides distance DATA and velocity, a distinct
advantage. It is entirely possible to attach GPS Time Code to every return
on the antenna, recording them as DATA Packets and storing the DATA. The
Packets would be a Text Record consisting of Amplitude, Velocity, Distance,
GPS Coordinates/Time Stamp; a very efficient way of DATA Storage and
Management. Since most Meteor Blurts seem to occur at 50 miles or greater
altitude, the typical return time is greater than 500 microseconds. Just to
be prudent, cut this in half. From my experiences with NAVSPASUR tells me
that there are minimum-duration Meteor Bursts as short as 1 millisecond.
Halve this for a repeat rate of 500 microseconds for the Pulses. So,
transmit 100 watt-50 MHz-1 microsecond pulses every 0.5 milliseconds or
less. Using a coherent detector, phase locked with the transmitter, the
Antenna returns distance and velocity, reconstructing the returns may be
displayed on a Spatial-Temporal waterfall using a Coherence Detector. The
most difficult task for each RADAR Site is the Antenna. It will have to
occupy a 6 Meter Square.

The Antenna/Transceiver...
6x6 meter ground plane of wire mesh like hurricane fencing (could be
completely under the turf.
Five 6 meter masts holding the Wire Antennas.
A Weatherproof enclosure at the base-apex mast housing the Electronics.
Cables for power and signal back to a PC.

With the cost of Processing and Cell Phone Communication now so low, it may
be possible to make a grid of RADARS completely autonomous and remote,
requiring only Power and Communicating only Text Packets to a Server in
bursts every minute of so.

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org
[mailto:meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org] On Behalf Of Samuel Barricklow
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 8:10 AM
To: Meteor science and meteor observing
Cc: Meteor science and meteor observing
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) The best Meteor detector on Earth

Jay, I doubt that you will get an affirmative response to your request.  The
system is in line for decommissioning at some point in the not too distant
future and replacement by a new system that will operate at a much higher
frequency.  The new system should be able to detect and track much smaller
objects, at much higher resolution.

Enjoy the excellent signal source while it's available!

Analog video carriers on TeeVee channel 2 are still working well for meteor
scatter in the Dallas area, but I also monitor the Lake Kickapoo
transmitter.

When all of these sources go away, maybe someone could fund several
strategically located CW beacons on the 6 meter ham band for meteor scatter
propagation purposes.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 16, 2012, at 1:54 AM, Jay Salsburg <jsalsburg at bellsouth.net>
> 
> I CALL FOR ACTION: for the US Government to share the live DATA Stream 
> and any Archives of DATA of the NAVSPASUR Receiver array, in the name 
> of Science.
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