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Re: (meteorobs) Re: Solar activity and meteors (reply)

At 07:22 PM 05/12/98 +0000, Marco wrote:
[snip]
>Future analysis on this topic are indeed very welcome. You rightly 
>identified the need for long term correlations due to the rather long 11 
>year cycle in solar activity.
[snip]

May I suggest that we keep in mind that while the sunspot cycle does,
indeed, exhibit a cycle of roughly 11 years, that other solar activity
appears to be twice that long, or 22 years? There has also been some
indication from meteorologists that some weather patterns appear to follow
the longer cycle.

My point is that we shouldn't forget to try to correlate data over more
than just the more-well-known cycle of 11 years.

FWIW, I've been reposting much of the MeteorObs discussion for this thread
to one of my ham radio meteor scatter reflectors because there is intense
interest in the same subject (there has been considerable solar activity
which has occasionally resulted in radio aurora now and then). In fact, the
last four or five weeks have been among the most sparse in terms of usable
radio meteor reflections at 144 MHz that any of the old timers can remember
here in North America. 

The general concensus regarding the Lyrids and eta Aquarids showers were
that they both merely seemed to exhibit meteor reflection activity about
the same as during the weeks following the Quadrantids; that is, shower
activity was barely enough to sound like ordinary randoms. But there have
been some few very long reflections at 144 MHz, some as long as 30 seconds
or longer, and there were also quite a few very "bright" reflections (that
is, the signal levels received were very much greater than normal random
activity exhibits).

Overall, many of us feel that radio meteor reflection activity this spring
at 144 MHz has been far below expectations based on past years. While radio
aurora is always welcome to us, too many solar storms have occurred that
have not resulted in any usable aurora. Personally, I'd rather have my
"rocks" back!

Clear skies,

SteveH
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