PART 2 - RADIO DETECTION of METEORS

A rich field for schools and amateur study

by Jeremy Exelby
March 2012
 PART 2 - RADIO DETECTION of METEORS
A rich field for schools and amateur study
by Jeremy Exelby
March 2012

CONTENTS
1 Introduction
1 The Basic Theory of Radio Detection
2 Description of Equipment and Construction Details
3 Set Up
4 Monitoring
5 Conclusion
6 References

1 INTRODUCTION

This subject has been introduced in the first part of this paper “Counting Shooting Stars
using a Car Radio”. The information presented below gives more detail as well as my
personal experiences with the subject. It is intended as a guide for students and teachers,
as well as amateur astronomers. I hope it encourages you to get involved!

2 THE BASIC THEORY of RADIO DETECTION

If we send a radio signal up into the sky, then a meteor trail will reflect it and this reflection
can be received back from where we sent it. This is illustrated below as the Back Scatter
Method…

Meteor trail

Transmission
Reflection
Observer

Ground

Sending out a radio signal requires a transmitter (additional expense) and a license, but
fortunately we can avoid both these requirements by using someone else’s radio signal –
so all we have to do is receive. This is a different geometry and is called the Forward
Scatter Method and is the approach described here….

Meteor trail

Reflection
Transmission
Observer

Ground
3 DESCRIPTION of EQUIPMENT and CONSTRUCTION DETAILS

THE ANTENNA
The Yagi antenna used here consists of six elements of which only one is wired up to the
tuner. The function of the other elements is to amplify the signal in the receiving element.

Antenna with elements vertical (vertical polarization)

Schematic of the antenna (not drawn to scale)

Receiving element Supporting beam

connected to tuner

Dimensions

Lengths of elements in cm: a = 150 ; b = 143* ; c = 138 ; d = 130 ; e = 125 ; f = 120

Separation of elements in cm: ab = 48 ; bc = 30 ; cd = 30 ; de = 45 ; ef = 60

Elements a, c, d, e, f are all made from single wires. Element b is the receiving element
and is a folded dipole. The separation of the longer wires was made to be 3cm. Element b
is sketched in more detail below. Source: http://radio.meteor.free.fr/us/antenna.html
Diagram (not to scale) of element b – the folded dipole, with connection

143 cm
3 cm

72 cm 72 cm

Coaxial cable
Core of cable Shielding of cable
soldered to one soldered to other end
end of the dipole of dipole

Materials

I used 4 mm galvanized wire that I straightened by twisting with a power drill – I had the
wire in my garage so the cost was zero. The elements turned out to be stiff enough to hold
their shape. Other ideas for materials are thin aluminium tube or steel rod.

For the supporting beam, I used a wooden pole. If you choose to use a metal section, be
sure to insulate the antenna elements from the supporting beam. A second wooden pole
was used as a stand for the antenna.

Fencing wire – starting point for the antenna Wire straightened and cut into elements

The connection at the folded dipole element

(Additional Note – frequency, wavelength and velocity of electromagnetic radiation are all
linked as described by the wave equation. Use the wave equation – look it up if necessary
– and the fact that the velocity of light is the same as the velocity of radio waves which is 3
* 108 m/s, to work out the wavelength of radiation that has a frequency of 100 MHz)

The Antenna to Tuner Connection

The link between antenna and tuner is made using co-axial cable such as is used to link TV
antennas to their receiver – the wiring is shown below. The length of the co-axial cable can
be quite long – I found the antenna received well, even with about 30m of co-axial cable.

I used a plastic box from a bicycle puncture kit to cover the connections and provide
weather-proofing – note that this is optional, but you should at least use insulation tape to
keep moisture out of the connections.

It is strongly recommended that you solder the connections to ensure good electrical
contact. If you are using wire for the elements as I did, be sure to file or sandpaper any
galvanizing coating off, or the solder will not stick. Another important point is to ensure that
the two ends are covered well with insulation tape to avoid short circuits.

At the other end of the coaxial cable, a suitable connector was used to plug in to the
antenna port of the tuner.

The Tuner

I used an old car radio that I had lying about. You might get a second-hand one cheaply
from your local car audio shop, or charity shop, or use an ordinary radio you have at home.

What is important is that the tuner has digital tuning that can be set manually to a desired
frequency – a dial tuning radio will not work. The tuner also needs an output port. For the
power supply, I connected the radio to a 12V transformer I had lying around. I enclosed the
radio and power supply in a simple box.

A discarded car radio is pressed into service as the tuner – note the digital tuning.
The Tuner to Computer Connection

This was made from normal speaker cable with a mono plug as illustrated.

Some experimentation was needed to ensure the correct connections – I knew when it was
right because my computer speakers then picked up signals from the tuner.

The mono plug was plugged into the microphone socket of my computer’s sound card.

Speaker wire and mono plug

The Computer

The computer must have a sound card, but otherwise, no special specification is needed.
You will also find computer speakers to be helpful.

In terms of software, a data-logging program is necessary. I use Radio SkyPipe, which is

available in its basic form as a free download from the internet at
http://radiosky.com/skypipeishere.html

The computer setup and tuner (centre)

Once you have reached this stage, congratulate yourself! You have made a low cost, but
capable meteor detector and monitor.

The next step is to carry out set up procedures and then start monitoring.
4 SET UP

Take your antenna outside and adjust it to point to a distant FM transmitter. By distant, I
mean something that is 500 km or more away, so in my case, the straight-line distance
from Howick to Cape Town is 1217 km at a bearing of 243 degrees from True North. This
was established using Google Earth (use the ruler function). A compass was used to point
the antenna in the right direction taking care to include the correction for magnetic north
(I added 20 degrees to the True North reading). I also pointed the antenna about 25
degrees skywards – (see comments about working this out in the Further Ideas section
below).

After a little experimentation, I decided to fix the antenna with the elements vertical. This
has to do with polarization of the signal and makes an interesting topic for research. Also,
as I received good signal by leaving the antenna and stand on my lawn, I decided not to
mount it on the roof, with the advantages that it was easily adjustable and not such a
lightning hazard.

Next, the tuner must be set to a suitable frequency. This must be a transmission frequency
of a distant transmitter that normally cannot be received by your receiving setup. So the
sound on your computer speakers should be a hiss without even the hint of speech from a
radio station. The corresponding trace you should see on Radio-SkyPipe looks like this …

Experiment with your setup and get to know it well. For instance in the trace shown below,
the first section shows the signal obtained from a frequency where no station was received
and only static noise was heard on the speakers, the second section was obtained when
the tuner was tuned to a radio station and reception was good, and lastly the tuner was
switched off and the graph then flat lines at zero.
Radio noise and interference is all around us so get to know what signals will interfere with
your observations. For example in the trace shown below, the first 4 peaks are from the
desk lamp fitted with a compact fluorescent tube when it was switched on; the step up of
the baseline occurred when the wireless modem was switched on; and the last peaks were
caused when a microphone was plugged into the computer’s USB port. What about
electrical storms – how will lightning affect your trace? (N.B. only check this out for distant
storms – you should disconnect your antenna and tuner from your computer when an
electrical storm comes close to avoid damage to sensitive electronic equipment).
When finding a frequency to monitor, it is helpful to consult a list of broadcasting
frequencies – Sentech (find out who they are) publish this on their website -
http://www.sentech.co.za/. I found a number of frequencies to be effective when pointing
the antenna towards Cape Town, one was 97.7 MHz – but this will probably be different for
your own equipment and location.

This next step is optional, but I also ran frequency sweeps across the FM broadcast band,
which helped to familiarize myself with both how my set-up was working and how busy the
broadcast band was locally. Below is an example trace (spectrum?) measured from 93
MHz to 95 MHz in 0.05 MHz intervals with the antenna horizontally polarized and pointing
towards Cape Town.

The frequency to choose for monitoring meteor activity needs to be one that will give you a
low baseline – so in the case of the trace above 93.00 Mhz would be a good frequency to
start with.

Now run your system for a few hours. If you get a baseline and nothing else, try a different
frequency. Be patient, it may take a few tries, but keep at it, you will get there.

When you obtain a baseline with occasional peaks, such as the example given below, you
can congratulate yourself again!! ;) You are now successfully detecting the arrival of
meteors using the radio forward scatter method.
5 MONITORING

Now decide some rules about what you consider to be peaks that represent meteors (e.g
eliminate what you know to be interference, decide a policy about counting the small peaks,
was there an electrical storm around during your measurement) and do a count. Compare
your results for a few consecutive periods, and then present them clearly – viola, you have
completed a successful project.

Why not go further though …

Find out more about meteor showers. (try http://www.imo.net/calendar, or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteor_showers ) These are times of the year when
meteor activity increases strongly and they occur at the same dates every year. This
makes for an interesting project – comparing the normal rate of meteor detection for your
set-up with the rate you observe during one of the showers.

If you get really interested you could monitor meteor activity continuously and report your
results this way.

Find someone to collaborate with. Compare your results with someone close to you, or, if
you are monitoring meteor activity using a transmitter in Cape Town, then consider getting
someone in Cape Town to monitor meteors using a transmitter near you. Do you think your
traces would look the same?

How about recording meteor activity on two separate channels? Using two similar setups,
you could monitor two distant FM signals, either in the same direction at different
frequencies, or in two different directions.
If you get really keen and are prepared to get a radio amateur license and a transmitter,
consider detection by means of back-scatter methods.

There is plenty of scope for interesting and indeed useful projects.

6 CONCLUSION

This field is rich in possibilities – it is also accessible to the amateur at very low cost.

The detection of meteors using radio methods is not dependant on weather conditions or
time of day, hence meteors can be detected at any time adding immediacy and interest to
results.

Many worthwhile school projects can be obtained from different aspects of this area of
study.

Involvement with this topic will stimulate interest and develop skills in science, mathematics
and technology subjects such as…
Astronomy and planetary science
Radio technology
Electronics
Computer science

7 REFERENCES

The internet was used exclusively when researching this project. Some URLs are given in
the body of the text above. For your own research, some useful search topics are…
IMO – International Meteor Society
Radio spectrum – Wikipedia
Radio detection of meteors
Radio SkyPipe
Antennas
Yagi antennas
Build your own Yagi antenna
Sentech
Radio transmitter frequencies in South Africa
Meteor - Wikipedia

-oOo-