The Meteor Fence Live

This is the live meteor fence going from Central Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. It is a 'front scatter radar' I built from stuff in my garage and a software defined radio (SDR). The principle of the fence is rather straight forward. Q102 is a classic rock station located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin and broadcasts on 102.3 MHz. It is over 200 KM from the antenna of the fence, and cannot be received here in Michigan due to the curve of the earth and lack of line of sight. There is a second station just south of that line about 60 KM broadcasting on the same frequency. This station illuminates the medium/high altitude meteors while Q102 is more the high altitude events over Lake Michigan. Of note is that 102.1 is to my East in Bad Axe, I am getting meteor traces REFLECTED off the side of my house as the antenna is pointed West toward the house. 102.7 is on the shore of Lake Michigan directly West of me well past Big Rapids. So there are three frequencies we can see the meteors with and that gives me complete coverage across the State of Michigan. Imagine a searchlight over the horizon from you. It may be very powerful, but due to the curvature of the earth we can not see it. However if an aircraft at great height flies between us and the searchlight (or just past it) and is illuminated by the searchlight, we CAN see the plane. As a meteor rips through the upper atmosphere at a height of 60-100 miles, it leaves a trail of ionized gases that persist briefly. Those gases reflect the signal from Q102 and I receive them with my directional antenna. They appear as strong vertical lime green lines that stand out from the background 'snow'. The fuzzy horizontal lines are atmospheric, the meteors and bright and sharp vertical lines. The lower third is the coarse view, you only see the bigger ones there. The upper left is fine tuned for the smaller ones. Of note, when testing this the other day and in front of radar experts in the chat, I was able to track two passes of the ISS to my west. It appears as a series of strong lime green vertical dashes. I can also see the beacon (2250.720 MHz) on the Chinese Space Station and will be trying to hit the ISS beacon at 70cm when it is in my area. This presentation is not a discussion, it simply gives the same raw data I see for you to observe yourself. I'll be making a presentation video on the meteor fence going over all this on ResearchFlatMoon in the coming week. I'll stream the fence from evening to morning, as meteors are most frequent from Midnight to about 11 or 12 later that morning (why? does it have to do with the rotation and orbit of the earth???). Note: Later in the evening I may switch over to a different frequency, 55.25 MHz. This is the video carrier signal for channel 2, over 500 KM away in Minn/St. Paul. I'd like to see if I can pick up anything on the waterfall on the lower half of the screen. Later I will stream the two radio telescopes in the Shamrock Banks Observatory for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy. Join our Discord Channel at https://discord.gg/nFf7EnMm8D Help the Channel by joining our channel as a member Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/bobthescienceguy or sending a Paypal for equipment (I do take requests for content) https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=ED65DTMU9AB8C


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