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

[Les Rayburn]

Equipment made for the 6 Meter amateur radio band works well at 49 MHz, 
it's readily available and inexpensive. Do a Google search for 6 Meter 
loop antennas, 6 Meter Yagi antennas, etc.

A simple 6 Meter loop placed at 20-30 feet above ground would give you 
omni-directional coverage and good performance with SNOTEL transmitters. 
If you're further away from the sites, or more interested in meteors 
from a specific sky region, then the directional characteristics of a 3 
element or 5 element Yagi would work best.

MFJ in Mississippi sells an inexpensive 3 element Yagi antenna for 6 
Meters for around $100.

The biggest problem with this frequency range is that Sporadic E skip is 
often present during the summer months, and again in December. It's easy 
to misinterpret propagation from Sporadic E--especially if you're using 
an automated "counting" system.

Random meteors from SNOTEL signals are audible here nearly 24 hours a 
day using an Icom 746 Pro transceiver, and a simple 3 element Yagi.

73,

Les Rayburn, N1LF
EM63nf


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.meteorobs.org/pipermail/meteorobs/attachments/20130105/6ac93a58/attachment.html