Work in progress: creating Python code for the Raspberry Pi at Brough Astronomy so that I can add a second radio receiver to provide the much needed audio for a true "multimedia" experience watching meteor showers.
A short break from work gave me some time for more experiments using WSPR over the Easter holidays from my WFH desk with a Raspberry Pi and Yaesu FT-817.
I first tried using a Clansman E-VHF sleeve dipole which happens to work rather badly on 30m and 17m and then with a Maldol 40m mobile whip operating at ground level in the garden.
The meteor radar detection system at Brough Astronomy is based on a Raspberry Pi and low cost USB Software-Defined Radio dongle. Despite it's small size, it is able to receive signals and distinguish between meteor echoes and the erroneous signals from satellites such as Elon Musk's "Starlink" constellation.
Over-dense echoes, caused by meteors with a mass that is greater than 1 mg, result in an ionised trail that persists over several seconds and occur in a daily peak associated with the earth passing through the meteor stream.
Whilst the rapidly decaying under-dense echoes, caused by the background of meteors with a mass less that 1 mg, appear to follow a sinusoidal pattern that is caused by the Earth's rotation into the meteor stream.
These graphs explains why meteor showers are best observed in the early morning before sunrise when the population is greatest - for more information see the presentation that was given to group's monthly meeting.
My Yeasu FT-8900R configured for a North Humber Raynet communications test on both 6m (with CTCSS set for compatibility with the Clansman military radios) and for the UHF Raynet repeater located at Weedley Farm in the Yorkshire Wolds.
Joint online lecture on Amateur Radio Astronomy given to the Blackburn Leisure Astronomy Society (BLAS) and the Pretoria Centre of the Astronomy Society of South Africa via Microsoft Teams.
