(Image via NASA)
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Van Hoy (VR2HF), who writes:
LISTEN TO THE MUSIC OF THE METEORS!
No matter what the skycover in the coming few days you can hear the Perseid Meteor Shower live via my receiver on 49.749 MHz USB. The hollow PINGS are brief bursts of signal from a TV station transmitter here in Asia enabled by meteors as they streak through the ionosphere. As with viewing the Perseids, patience pays rich rewards of hearing the amazing music of the meteors. Enjoy! Dan…VR2HF
Click here to view on YouTube.
Thank you for sharing this Dan. I have heard a number of pings over the past few hours. Amazing!
STREAM OFFLINE but RECEIVER STILL AVAILABLE
As the Perseids diminish, I have ended the stream on YouTube. But, my receiver is still available (VR2HF Hong Kong DX) at GlobalTuners.com
If you tune 49.749 MHz you may still hear some meteors from time to time. Normally, the receiver is set on 121.300 MHz, a local ATC radar frequency. It can be tuned anywhere within the range of the FT-817, MW, SW, VHF and UHF.
73, Dan…
Another good site for meteor listening: http://www.livemeteors.com/
I listened a lot yesterday and I missed the typical doppler shift on all signals I heard so far. I listened to the GRAVES CW radar on 143.050 a few years ago in August and there were distinct doppler shifts due to the high velocity of these “intruders” on pretty much all echoes I received, easy to hear and see on the waterfall. I heard a lot of signals w/o noticeable doppler shift I’d classify as “slow movers” though, often fading in and out slowly, which are very likely planes, or simply little patches of sporadic E-layer reflectiveness (we’re in the sporadic-E season after all).
Stream seems to be offline currently, here’s another stream from the UK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wXPmCFruaw
Same goes for this stream, probably half of the planes crossing the UK are causing echoes too, but I just heard a real meteor ping (with fast doppler shift PEEOW!) that seemed to have left an ionization cloud, digging up the TV signal in all its bandwidth glory for like 2 minutes. 🙂
Not quite sure if this is partly owed to the wideband nature of the reflected signal. Since the GRAVES radar is a narrowband CW signal swept through 4 sectors over the course of a few seconds, I guess there is less chance for aircraft to reflect the signal for that long.
Err.. that’s not UK but DC area. 🙂 Also, just checked, at least here in Europe the 50 MHz (and hence als 60) bands are reported “Es”/”High MUF”.