[GCARC] Meteor scatter communications this week

[Jon Pearce]

The Leonids meteor shower peaks this week and we have several opportunities to engage with it. This mode is one of the mode fascinating and challenging ham operating options since meteor showers only occur several times each year. We were successful in working several stations during the last shower and hope to be just as successful this time. We'll be operating this week on Friday and Saturday mornings from the Clubhouse and the Monday TechNet (tomorrow) will cover meteor scatter operation. If you're interested be sure to take advantage of one or more of these opportunities.

Most of the published information about meteor showers focus on the night hours since viewing meteors can only occur at night, but the prime operating hours are actually in the early morning since we don't need darkness to bang signals off of meteors. It appears that the shower will peak this coming Friday so I'll be at the Clubhouse early Friday morning (no commitments as to time but certainly by 8 AM) to try to make some contacts. Since many members may not be available on Friday we'll also be operating Saturday morning although the meteors may not be as plentiful at that time. If you're not sure if the clubhouse is occupied give a call at 856-244-6914 and whomever is there will answer.

The setup for meteor scatter is the Flex 3000 HF radio that also covers 6 meters.  This is currently our primary operating band - there's also activity on 2 meters but we don't yet have the 1500 watt 2 meter amp set up in the clubhouse. So we'll be using the Flex 3000 in the HF room connected to the Elecraft amp that also operates on 6 meters and connecting that setup through a long cable from the HF room to the 6 meter beam connection in the VHF room. The operating mode is the MSK-144 option of the JT-65 package that transmits a 15 second signal on 50.260 mhz with about 800 watts output. Then we wait to see who responds. Strong signals are local stations but weak transient signals from distant stations are probably scattered from meteors.

If you don't want to join in the fun at the clubhouse you can still play along at home by using PSK Reporter (https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html) and searching for the MSK144 mode and signals sent by W2MMD. Last time we were heard by many stations as far away as Dallas, Nova Scotia and Orlando.

Tomorrow night's TechNet Zoom meeting at 7:30 PM will cover these details so be sure to join in if you're interested. The zoom info is ZOOM ID : 960 8543 6644; Passcode : 964974. Here's the link to the meeting: https://zoom.us/j/96085436644?pwd=Rzk5TGl5ZW05M0dBd1VHY1k1QmRQUT09

If you're interested in reading about this mode some useful references are here<https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/ham_radio/amateur-propagation/meteor-scatter-burst-communications.php>, here<https://g7rdx.co.uk/vhf/meteor-scatter/#:~:text=Meteor%20scatter%20is%20an%20exciting,even%20thousands%20of%20miles%20away.>, here<https://www.parkerradio.org/community/general/simple-guide-to-meteor-scatter-msk-144/>, and a good article about the MSK144 protocol is here<https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/MSK144_Protocol_QEX.pdf>.

Have some new fun in ham radio - bounce signals off of meteors! We're working our way up to bouncing signals off of the moon sometime in the next few months, so this is a step in the right direction. Hope to see some members joining in tomorrow night and on Friday and Saturday.

73 de Jon WB2MNF
GCARC President