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Can One Detect Meteor Scatter and Solar Storms with an AM/FM/Shortwave Radio?

-- Matthew | December 29, 2019

Question:

Can a basic FM/AM/Shortwave radio be useful for any type of amateur radio observing? If so what would be the best way to use it? I ask because I do not have the room for a Radio Jove array or other large antennas and have not had much luck with the midrange SDRs. My main interests are meteor scatter and solar storm detection.

Clear skies (not necessary for radio observations though),

-Matthew

-- Matthew

Answer:

I think that it would be difficult to detect meteor scatter or solar storms with an AM/FM/shortwave radio for two different reasons. Meteor scatter measurements can be done with amateur radio equipment, but requires a synchronized transmit and receive sequence in order to detect a meteor trail scattered from a radio station that is known to be transmitting at a specific time and frequency. For solar storms, the problem is that these phenomena are measured at very low frequencies, in the range 16 to 81 kHz, which is below the AM frequency band. Special VLF radio receiver equipment is used to do solar storm measurements through its ionospheric emission.

-- Jeff Mangum

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