METEOR.TXT APRS METEOR SCATTER =========================================================================== Document dated: 5 Aug 2010. Previous was 18 July 99 Author(s): Bob Bruninga, WB4APR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ See also www.aprs.org/APRS-docs/LEONIDS.TXT This update (Aug 2010) adds the idea for individual montioring of 144.39 Meteors constantly bombard the atmosphere leaving numerous ionized trails. Athough individual trails are random, there is a long term continuum to provide almost continuous data throughput of around 100 baud average over ranges of 500 to 1000 miles. This is usually done by two stations operating full duplex on separate frequencies with beam antennas pointing to the same area of the sky, and running the highest practical power levels (100% transmit duty cycle). The optimum frequency seems to be around 40 MHz, making the 10 meter and 6 meter bands the most favorable. Though 2 meters also works.. Usually data is transmitted at high power and data rates 4800 or 9600 baud so that the packet lengths are very short. On average a few get through every few minutes. Can Meteor scatter work on 2 meters? Yes and no. K1HTV and W0RPK completed the first packet QSO between Maryland and Iowa during a meteor shower back in 1984. Running very high power, and it still took 2.5 hours to complete the contact. My APRS station has been on the APRS 2 meter frequency 24 hours a day for 6 years, along with hundreds of other stations across the country. In all that time I have seen only two random packets that could be attributed to Meteor reflection during meteor showers. This is due to using an OMNI antenna and the constant QRM on the channel. HOWEVER, using APRS during the 1995 Persieds, 18 stations with beams saw packets over 1000 mile paths on 145.79. And again during the Leonids in 1998, 37 stations proved that APRS works well for capturing MS packets. Since 1998, we have the advantage that ALL normal APRS activity has moved to 144.39, thus leaving 145.79 available for DEDICATED METEORSCATTER WORK! !!! Though the space station now uses 145.800 and so the 10 KHz separation is insufficient to prevent QRM !!! In 1999 Leonids, a simplex frequency proposed by W2EV of 147.585 was used. There are TWO things we can to with APRS and METEOR SCATTER. The first is to play with it on 2 meters during the very predictable Meteor SHOWERS that happen a few times a year. The second is to begin building a 6 meter MS network. APRS is an ideal tool for generating interesting but SHORT packets and for displaying and recording them. METEOR SHOWER EVENTS ON TWO METERS: There are two approaches to 2 meters. 1) Operate in a very high rate MS mode with lots of participants (like we did back in the 1990's). Or 2) just operate as an individual MONITORING 144.39 for DX MS packets coming in from hundreds of miles away during a meteor shower. The latter depends on no one but yourself. The former is harder and harder to get people motivated to get away from their internet addiction and just do something... APRS ROUTINE METEOR SCATTER MONITORING APPROACH: So as an INDIVIDUAL... Here is what I would do... 1) See if you can find a place with weak 144.39 signals. 2) Such as down in a valley somewhere where surrounding city APRS traffic is hard to hear but you can still see the sky down to about 10 degrees in a favored direction towards a really BIG APRS activity area about 500 miles to 800 miles away. If targeting a distant city, keep your beam low (to minimize local QRM) but point it up about 10 to 20 degrees in the favored direction. (Actually, tiliting it is not needed at all... But the point is to keep the antenna itself LOW below the horizon to avoid local packets.) Run your APRS station on 144.39 all night. In the morning, look at what packets you caprured, looking carefully at the PATH. If you heard them direct and they are over 200 miles or so away, then it was most likely via MS (or tropo...). And you did not have to drum up any other players, You let the 10,000 other signals on the air be your test signals... APRS METEOR SCATTER MODE: This mode is designed for getting a lot of people to run APRS all night (days work too) operating on a DEDICATED separate frequency during a meteor shower event. APRSdos has a MS mode to improve the probabilities of seeing APRS packets during a Meteor Shower (MS). In APRSdos use the alt-S-FORMATS-MSCATTER command: 1) Your grid square posit is placed as the first word in your STATUS text in order to get the shortest possible packet: W3XYZ>APRS:>GG##gg$... comment^HP... Where ">" makes it an APRS STATUS packet The first word is a Grid Square $ is the APRS Symbol or ICON COMMENT can be any length ^HP encodes your beam heading & power according to the following: P = SqrRoot(P/10): 2=40, 3=90, 5=250, 9=910 H = heading /10: 2=20, 9=90, A=100, Z=350 2) your normal digipeater path is removed 4) CONTROLS-FILTER-LIMIT is set to ignore all but DIRECT packets 5) CONTROLS-OTHER is set to capture OTHER packets (not just APRS) 6) The country is divided into four regions and ops in each region transmit randomly on the same 15 second sycle. This improves the chances that stations 500 to 1000 miles away will be LISTENING when a DX packet is being transmitted. 7) When your station transmits, it will send from 10 to 20 copies of your packet (.25 secs each, or about 3 seconds total). Or a full 15 seconds of packets if you choose 100%. 8) Your TNC is placed in FULL DUPLEX mode so multiple local TNC's will transmit at the same time, instead of collision avoidance. 9) The objective is to see POSITS and record HEARD logs. There is NO enhancement given to other APRS packets (ie, messages). In order for this to work optimally, everyone must be synchronized to within a few seconds of WWV! APRS will let the Northeast transmit from 00 to 15, then the Southeast to 30, then the Southwest to 45 and then the Northwest to 00. The dividing lines are 39 degrees latitude and 96 degrees longitude. Most Meteor showers only peak for a few days, so, although this mode will generate a LOT of local QRM on 145.79, it wont last long! TWO WAY CONTACTS: Two-ways are really only expected on 6 meters, but here is the procedure suggested by W0RPK and implemented in APRSdos: 1) When you see a MS packet from another station, use the INPUT-STATUS command to enter an Snn signal report. Send Snn/HISCALL where nn is the number of packets copied from that station. 2) WHen you see an Snn report from another station, send back his report with an R on the end: SnnR/HISCALL 3) WHen you see an SnnR from another station, send back SnnR73/HISCALL 4) WHen you see SnnR73 from the other station, then you have one for the record books. In all of these exchanges, the number nn will probably increment as the number of successfull packets accumulate. In MScat mode, APRS must always have one of the standard APRS addresses in the TO call such as CQ, QST, ALL, etc, so you have to communicate via the comment field in the format above. DURING A METEOR SHOWER PLEASE DO THE FOLLOWING: 1) Turn off HF GATEWAYS. (no longer needed since MS will be on 145.79) 2) Set your UNPROTO PATH TO NONE, nothing, nadda, zip, zero 3) Use MAXIMUM POWER and coordinate your BEAM headings not to overlap the beam headings of other transmitting stations in your area 4) Be sure that at least one station in your area posts a BULLETIN advising everyone of the MS EVENT and to NOT use digipeaters. 5) Check your screen daily for MS posits. Especially in the morning. Look at the D-LIST to be sure it was heard direct. 6) Only the MAP, P-list and HEARD log will be useful. The L-LIST does not normally update on POSITS, and a MS packet with a GDSQ in the address, is a POSIT. It will NOT show up on the L-LIST or A-LIST. BUILDING A METEOR SCATTER NETWORK ON 6 METERS: To make this work as a meaningful system, we need to operate at 100 watts or so, using 9600 baud packets. This is actually easy to do: 1) It is easy to find 100W surplus highway-patrol radios for about $50 2) The Kantronics 9612 TNC has both the 1200 and 9600 baud modems that can operate on both 145.79 for normal APRS, and 9600 baud on 6m for MScat. Transmitting normal APRS packets at the normal timings, however, will almost certainly not be seen. 3) The best way to transmit is by using any 9600 baud TNC and loading the grid square into the UNPROTO TO call, and placing the TNC into CONVERSE mode. Then periodically, a series of 10 carriage returns are sent to the TNC to force the generation of 10 minimal length position reports. On 6 meters, the objective of the network is still only to send and receive position reports. Remember that MS is MORE reliable than the ionosphere and HF. It will be a good band for reporting the position of distant mobiles (who can afford to run 100W on a 20% or so duty cycle!) THINGS TO DO! We need to get a NATIONWIDE 6 meter APRS tracking frequency AND A SEPARATE 6 meter Meteor Scatter frequency. Here is the existing band plan in the Washington DC/Baltimore area: 50.62 APRS network (3 digis in the Baltimore/Wash area) 50.64 50.66 50.68 50.70 OLD RTTY FREQ 50.72 50.74 50.76 50.78 50.80 Lower band edge for remote control I recommend we choose a frequency FAR from the radio control OPS... I suggest 50.62 MHz, unless someone comes up with a better one. ALthough we have a local 50.62 APRS tracking network, the activity is so low, we WELCOME MS activity during meteor showers... Bob, WB4APR