ARLA/CLUSTER: Começo da época dos contactos via Meteor Scatter entre 16 e 25 de Abril

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Meteor Scatter season gets underway

SARL News report the Meteor Scatter (MS) season has started with the
April meteor showers and will continue until the beginning of January
next year.

There are 88 annual meteor showers listed by astronomers of which the
majority are minor showers, while a major shower will appear at least
monthly from now until January.

Meteoroids are debris from comets or asteroids and when these small
particles, which vary in size, burn up in the upper atmosphere they
leave visible meteor trails. These trails can also reflect VHF radio
waves from 50 to 432 MHz and produce very strong radio bursts on 50
MHz and the radio bursts last a lot longer on this magic band.

Normally meteor bursts are only audible for a few seconds, but could
increase up to several minutes during major showers.

There are five minor showers present during the month of April to
provide excellent contacts on the digital mode FSK441.
A major shower, the Lyrids, will appear between 16 to 25 April 2016
and peak in the early morning of 22 April with an hourly rate that may
vary from 18 trails to several dozen over different years and make
possible SSB or FM communications which could cover distances up to 2
500 km. Meteor Scatter has a skip distance of 500 - 600 km on 50 MHz,
but it increases on the higher VHF bands.

Take up the challenge and give it a go on 50 MHz!

SARL