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Re: (meteorobs) 1998 NAMN Annual Report

At 10:15 PM 3/30/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello,
>  Is this a serious ,scientifically minded group,
>or just a bunch of loafers saying a lot and doing 
>nothing. I have received over 30 bits of mail in 
>the last few days since I joined this list and 
>have not heard one intelligent thing discussed.

David, as a fellow ham, allow me to attempt to put this list's "normal"
activities in perspective for you.

First off, the vast majority of the folks who post to the list are very
serious, albeit amateur, meteor observers; you can get an idea of the
results of their observations from that 1998 NAMN Annual Report. (Some of
us are fortunate to have "professional" work associated with watching the
sky, however!)

But secondly, please recognize that although meteors are always slicing
through the atmosphere, not all meteors are observable, particularly by
visual means. Many things may mitigate against serious visual observations,
such as the full moon which we now have, weather (*especially* during a
major meteor shower!), and the lack of "organized" meteor activity other
than during the many minor and major showers. And so you won't find folks
running out to observe and report on meteors every night. Most folks feel
fortunate to manage to get in several good, solid nights (two to six of
observations per night) each month outside of the major showers. Then, too,
these late Winter/early Spring days are among the most sparse in terms of
organized meteor activity throughout the entire year. (I can personally
attest to the lack of "good" radio meteors during this month as my daily
schedule completion rate with W8WN in Kentucky has dropped to just 9 of 18
schedules compared to 15 of 19 for each of January and February!).

Give the list a chance; when a minor shower comes along, you'll find
several to half a dozen reports each night for several nights each week.

If it's radio meteor activity you're primarily interested in, that, too, is
a forte of this NAMN group. Subscribers include at least half a dozen,
probably more like 9 or 10, of the foremost radio meteor observers and
scientists on the planet. Although most of the radio meteor reports are
actually more-or-less continous counts of meteor activity as heard on the
FM broadcast band or TV channels, there are a few radio amateurs such as
myself who, from time to time, also contribute reports of unusual radio
meteor activity.

But you won't find all, or even most of us, reporting our observations each
and every night simply because none of us have that kind of fortitude nor
time for our "hobby".

As for serious discussions... had you subscribed just last week, you would
have found several discoursions on topics such as the calculation of meteor
shower radiant rising time, zenithal attraction of earth grazing meteors,
and meteor spectroscopy. A topic that may have been of especial interest to
yourself may have been one discussed over the period of a week about three
weeks ago concerning visual meteor trains and what portion of the meteor or
its train reflect radio waves most efficiently.

In between observation sessions, yes: you *will* occasionally find some of
the "chat" which you have lately read taking place amongst the more active
subscribers just to pass the time until they can get back out in the field
again. But when the meteors start flying, the gloves come off and everyone
gets serious again!

There is an archive of MeteorObs which you may wish to peruse to find
topics that may be of interest. Since the list just changed servers, I'm
not positive what the URL might be of the archive, but our sysop, Lew
Gramer, will be more than happy to remind us.

73 and Clear skies,

SteveH K0XP
Shrewsbury Mass (FN42dg)
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