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Perseid
Meteor Shower Offers Fun for VHF DXers, Skywatchers
 A Perseid fireball spotted during the August
1997 shower. [Rick Scott and Joe Orman Photo] |
NEWINGTON, CT, Aug 11, 2003--VHF DXers and
skywatchers alike will be ready for the annual Perseid meteor shower that peaks
this week. On 6 and 2 meters, meteor-scatter QSOs of up to 1500 miles may be
possible during the shower--now under way and expected to peak August 13.
There's even a contest for those who enjoy 6-meter meteor scatter.
"The bursts during the peak allow for random
QSOs easily, some bursts lasting 8-15 seconds, enough for a completed QSO,"
said Bob Reed, W2CE, in a posting to the DX-List reflector.
The Perseids
Meteor Shower Contest sponsored by the Six Meter World Wide Club starts
August 12 at 2300 UTC and continues through August 14 at 2300 UTC. Permissible
modes are SSB, CW and WSJT, and this
event is for 6 meters only. Participants exchange call signs and grid squares.
Logs are due September 14 to w4wrl@aol.com
or Wayne Lewis W4WRL, Contest Director, 3338 S Cashua Dr, Florence, SC
29501-6306.
Shelby Ennis, W8WN, in Kentucky, runs the High Speed Meteor Scatter and
JT44 EME Web page. High speed meteor scatter (HSMS) "is much more efficient
than slow CW or SSB meteor scatter," Ennis says on his Web site. He claims a
90-percent chance of success using HSMS techniques versus a 5-percent chance of
completing a meteor-scatter contact on SSB. "Also, HSMS is usable every day of
the year, not just during the peaks of major showers," he adds. "Grids can be
worked that aren't available by other propagation types." His page includes
links to other meteor scatter-related resources.
The article "Catch a Falling Star" by
Kirk Kleinschmidt, NT0Z, is a primer on meteor-scatter operation and
propagation. It appeared in the October 1997 QST, so some of the
article's Web links may now be out of date, but the basic information remains
valid.
Like most meteor showers, the Perseids are
caused by comet debris--in this case the comet Swift-Tuttle. As comets enter
the inner solar system, solar heat and wind produce the familiar tails across
the night sky when a comet is close to Earth. Comet tails are made of tiny
pieces of ice, dust, and rock that slough off the comet's nucleus.
Occasionally, a large fragment will explode in a fireball, but most of the
meteoroids are approximately the size of a grain of sand.
According to NASA, the average speed of a
Perseid meteoroid is 130,000 MPH. "When skies are dark and clear, observers
often see as many as one hundred Perseids per hour--an impressive display," NASA says.
"This year, however, skies won't be dark. A glaring full moon will wipe out
many faint meteors and reduce by a factor of two or three the number you can
see."
While the full moon should not affect Amateur
Radio meteor scatter, the Perseids are a northern hemisphere phenomenon because
of the way the comet's orbit is tilted. The meteoroids appear to come from the
constellation Perseus, from which they derive their name. The shower is easy to
spot from Europe and North America, but Southern hemisphere sky watchers will
see very few Perseids.
Page last modified: 03:13 PM, 11 Aug 2003 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
Copyright © 2003, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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