[meteorite-list] Listening to Meteors...

From: mark ford <markf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:21:08 2004
Message-ID: <6CE3EEEFE92F4B4085B0E086B2941B31014306_at_s-southern01.s-southern.com>

Hi Marcia!

I am told that you at least can hear meteor pings, on pretty much any
radio, but there are some things to bear in mind.

1. The Antenna, needs to be 'good' since you are receiving a relatively
weak signal that is reflected from the meteor, (I.E the better your
antenna the more pings you will detect) Having said that people have
heard meteor pings on Car radio's tuned to Short/long wave stations!
It's even better if you have an antenna, that is 'pointed' at the radio
station...

2. It is vital that the station you are listening for is just over your
horizon, since the signal has to bounce from the meteor, and be
reflected down at the correct angle hence the reason it is below the
horizon.

3. You need to tune into a 'continuous tone' something like a TV station
'carrier signal' which will sound like a 'whine' or a fax/beacon or
anything that transmits a continuous sound,. If you just tune into a
normal music station you won't hear the 'ping' because the music is
changing tone all the time.

4. [You really want to tune into a station that is very faint], because
the signal gets reflected from the meteor and gets much louder quickly
(hence the ping!) its pointless tuning in to a loud station since the
meteor won't make the signal any louder!


There is a whole heap of space bourne radio signals, you can for example
with a suitable antenna hear the radio emissions from Jupiter, (they
sound like a crackle/waves).



 - Sorry everyone for the long post but there seems to have been quite a
bit of interest in this!

Mark F.
IMCA #1388
Received on Thu 24 Jul 2003 04:02:31 AM PDT