Christmas in Connecticut

This is nuts! December 22, 2013, the temperature at 2PM is 64 degrees Fahrenheit here on Compounce Mountain.

STL-SDR for TV-DX Meteor Scatter

By Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW (fn20iq)

This is a follow-up to the October 4, 2013 article titled $20 Multimode Software Defined Radio.

On October 26, 2013 at 22:47 UTC (6:47 pm EDT), a negative 4.00 stellar magnitude meteor (less than a category negative 4.50 magnitude fireball) from the Orionids meteor shower caused by small fragments of comic debris from Halley's Comet streaked between the boroughs of Mountain Top and Freeland, then over Kunkletown, reaching into the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.

Seconds later, its light yellow flame was seen overhead in Nazareth, then the Delaware River and finally making its way to Marble Hill, New Jersey, while blazing at a velocity of 41 miles per second (67 km/sec).

It was determined the meteor tracked 3.7 miles north of Center Square in Easton, PA.

Closest approach was 3.0 miles to the northeast when it fragmented into smaller pieces while cruising at a 45 degree inclination during its 3.5-second flight journey through Earth's atmosphere.

The Orionids meteor shower was active from October 4 to November 14, 2013. Peak nights occurred on October 21-22. Meteor rates were expected to be 50 to 75 per hour.

At the time of event on October 26, I was home in south Easton with two NTSC analog television sets turned to channel 2 with the volume set at a comfortable listening level waiting for a chance of TV-DX via Sporadic E or F2 propagation. Unfortunately neither occurred.

Something very rare did occur at 6:15 pm EDT, exactly 32 minutes prior to the meteor event stated above overhead near Easton, while hoping to catch the Canadian network CTV, call sign CKCO in Wiarton, Ontario via meteor scatter (Ms) on 55.240 MHz (minus offset) at a distance of 941 miles. Without warning the TV's audio steady background noise rapidly flared producing what sounds similar to a burst of high pressure air leaking through a cracked pipe. That effect instantly startled me for about three seconds.

Later, I realized that sound effect was not the result of a meteor forward scatter mode, but rather the ionized atmospheric gases (plasma) surrounding the meteor while leaving a vapor trail overhead. It seemed as if the meteor was exiting through the TV tube! After nine years of TV-DXing I never experienced this phenomenon!

It was this rare event that inspired me to take a more active roll in finding other techniques in meteor detection --- using the $20 STL-SDR dongle. After some experimentation, I can confirm that this inexpensive device has enough sensitivity to detect, spot and track meteors.

I would like to share snapshot images of what a meteor looks like on the SDR# (SDR Sharp) waterfall display.

The above snapshot shows the STL-SDR device tuned (red dial line) to a frequency of 55.250 MHz. On both sides of this frequency (55.240 and 55.260 MHz) you can see two vertical meteor scatter traces starting at the date/time stamp displayed at the left margin. The first trace (on 55.240) is a moderate signal strength signal from CKCO in Wiarton, Ontario, over 421 air miles distance. The second trace is a weak signal strength signal on 55.260 from CIII in Bancroft, Ontario over 320 air miles distance. More sample images can be found here on Photobucket

To detect meteors via forward scatter propagation there has to be powerful (25 kW or more)radio frequency transmitter at one end point that is on the air 24 hours a day, such as a
full-power TV facility that radiates 100 kW on their video carrier with 10 kW audio. In my technique, I am not concerned with the audio portion of the signal.

The above statement would meet half of our requirements. The US TV broadcast conversion from analog to digital went into effect on June 12, 2009, per Congressional mandate. Unknown to many citizens, there are analog US TV signals on the air since the DTV transition (currently 72 low-powered analog TV stations are on the air in the US). These stations are Class-A , low-powered translators that run from 2 watts up to 3 kW on channel 2. Again, the power is not strong enough for Ms detection.

By now you may be wondering how will we be able to find any full-power 100 kW broadcasters in which to do TV-DX via meteor scatter using the STL-SDR dongle. There is one other option to peruse. Our maple leaf friends up along the Canadian/US border have five analog TV-2 channels that remain active since their DTV analog-to-digital transition went into effect on August 31, 2011. This option has an extra advantage as there will be no US-based high-powered NTSC analog television stations to cause any radio frequency interference issues.

By the way, normal meteor scatter range is up to 1,400 miles.

Good DX!

High Weirdness

Smudge

I was sound asleep this morning when the doorbell rang at 1:30 AM. My first thought was that it cannot be good and expected the police to be at the door with some bad news.

I went downstairs and looked out the windows of the front door, but no one was there.

Suddenly, a cat hopped down from the porch railing, scooted halfway down the sidewalk, and turned around to look back at me. After a second or two, it moved on.

I was not wearing my eyeglasses, so I could not identify the cat as one of our neighbors' felines, but I have a feeling it was a neighbor's cat named Smudge, who my daughter and I rescued from a tree and babysat for a few days when he was a kitten.

I felt bad for the cat because it was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit at that time with a wind chill factor down in the single digits.

But how did it ring the doorbell? The doorbell is within a cat's reach from the porch railing, but was it just dumb luck or was the cat very intelligent.

And by the way, just as I began typing this, about 15 wild turkeys just crossed our lawn on their way into the woods across the street!

What Did I See?

Yesterday, I was sitting in my car in the parking lot at 1132 Meriden Road, Waterbury, CT. At about 5:30 PM EDT, I looked up toward the east-southeast and saw a plane travel just above the treetops from left to right. It caught my eye because it looked like it had pontoons.

While watching the plane, I noticed the an object traveling in the opposite direction beyond the plane about 30 degrees above the horizon. The object was much farther away than the plane. It was just a point of light, a reflection of the sun moving very slowly out of a stratocumulus cloud into the clear sky.

The object did not travel in a straight path, but seemed to twist and turn slowly. As it did, the reflection would dim and the object would become a darker object momentarily, then the object would twist and turn again and become a point of light or reflection of the sun. It was as if one side of the object was very reflective, while the other side was dull and not reflective.

While I watched it, it traversed about 15 degrees in about 10 minutes along a generally horizontal path. Then it encountered another cloud bank and faded away into the cloud bank.

Weather conditions were partly cloudy, temperature 85ºF, a light westerly breeze, and no precipitation.

What did I see?

A balloon is my guess: a silver metallic balloon that they sell in stores for parties with graphics on one side (the dull side) and nothing on the other side (the reflective side).

The only thing that contradicts that guess is that if it was your standard party balloon, could I even see it considering how far away it seemed to be. The object came out of one stratocumulus cloud and disappeared into another. Stratocumulus clouds top out at about 6500 feet and these were at a 30 degree angle above the horizon not overhead, so who knows how many miles away the object was located.

Could I see a 12-inch wide balloon X miles away?

in the air

Things I don't see too often around here...

Wednesday evening, after washing the cars, I looked up to see the end of a military jet refueling operation. I say "end" because the two planes flew in refueling formation for about 15 seconds, then the plane behind and below the other plane broke formation and flew off to the northeast. That is the third time I have seen a refueling operation; another time, while visiting my mother in Waterbury, and the first time, while walking The Pies on Beecher Road in Downtown Wolcott.

And speaking of walking The Pies, Thursday morning, I was walking The Pies on Beecher Road and looked up to see a snowy egret fly overhead just above tree level.

Where are the Sunspots? Are we in for a Quiet Solar Cycle?

So what's up with our Sun? Is it going through a depression? It seems as if our closest star is experiencing a surprisingly uneventful couple of years. Solar minimum has supposedly passed and we should be seeing a lot more magnetic activity, and we certainly should be observing lots more sunspots...

Read all about it here.

satellite spotters learn too much for the government's comfort

This article is an interesting follow-up to what I wrote here on the 7th.

mystery aircraft

At night, from my 925-foot perch on the west rim of the Connecticut River Valley, I can see the headlights of planes lined up as they approach BDL from Long Island Sound to the south. Typically, I can simultaneously see the headlights of two planes, sometimes three planes, each separated by the requisite airspace that such maneuvers require.

Some nights they pass to the east of my location on a straight up the river valley approach to BDL. Other nights they veer to the west off that straight up the river valley approach and end up passing directly overhead on a roundabout approach to BDL. (When they fly overhead, they are so low that I can hear them lower their landing gear in preparation for landing.)

Last night, I took the Pies out for last call at 10:05 PM and I saw three planes lined up on their approach to BDL. As I waited for the dogs, the first two passed to my east on the straight up the river valley approach to BDL.

The third plane was different; its headlights were not what I typically see. Usually, I see only one large point of light per plane until the plane passes more closely. The third plane had two large points of light side-by-side connected by a lighted horizontal bar (see my accompanying drawing).

When I originally saw it, I assumed it was traveling toward me, like a pair of connected headlights, but then I realized it was traveling along the horizon and I was viewing it from its side with one globe of light at its front end and the other globe of light at its rear end.

It flew along my horizon starting at approximately my south-southeast, moved west and then north, the whole time remaining about 40 degrees above my horizon. I lost it in the trees to my north-northwest.

The craft was too far away to see anything but its lights. Its speed was typical for the airliners I usually see.

There were one or two other distant planes in the area at the time and they were so distant that I could not tell which direction the faint jet engine sound I heard was coming from, i.e., from the mystery craft or the other distant planes.

Early on, I thought it might be a helicopter because it looked so unusual, but even at a distance, helicopters have an unmistakable sound and I did not hear that when I saw the mystery craft.

I am stumped as to what I saw last night. Any solutions to the mystery would be appreciated.

buying the farm

I almost bought the farm yesterday.

I am driving to work on the interstate in the right hand lane at the posted speed limit (65 MPH), which is how I usually drive during the rush hour when there are a lot of frantic drivers on the road driving like maniacs. Another car in front of me is doing the same, meanwhile most of the other vehicles on the interstate are passing us in the two lanes to our left.

I notice the car in front of me momentarily swerve into the breakdown lane, then it swerved back into the driving lane after encountering the bumper strip. With that I decided to slow down and put more space between us. I am in no hurry, my exit is about a mile away, so I am not going to worry about adding an extra 30 seconds to my commute.

A tractor trailer passes me in the center lane. As it passes the car in front of me, the car begins to swerve into the center lane and the rear wheels on the right side of the tractor trailer catch the left front side of the car in front of me.

I can't believe my eyes, but I know that all hell is about to break loose 500 feet ahead of me and I hit the brakes.

The tractor trailer never stops. When the car hit its rear wheels, it probably felt like a flea bumping into an elephant.

On the other hand, the car careens out of control across the three lanes of the interstate, onto the center median, and comes to a stop on top of the man-made hill in the center of the median facing traffic at a right angle.

I lucked out and the car did not end up in my lap. There were no cars in the other as the car crossed the interstate, so everyone lucked out except the driver of the car that swerved into the tractor trailer's wheels.

My car came to a stop in the breakdown lane exactly across the highway from the car where it landed on top of the hill in the center median.

I had no cell phone to call in the accident. I was not going to try and walk across three lanes of traffic to see if the driver of the car needed help especially since other cars were now stopping along side the center median to offer assistance. So, I eased back into traffic and went to work.

Wow!

I don't know what caused the car to swerve as it did. The car had a red, white, and blue out-of-state license plate that I did not recognize. Had the driver been on the road too long and was falling asleep at the wheel? Or was the driver distracted using a cell phone or an iPod, consulting a map, putting on makeup?

I don't know and probably never will, but that close call provided me with an education and I promised myself that I will never be distracted using a cell phone, iPod, ham radio, etc., while driving in the future, and I will be even more alert of the other drivers around me.

Surfin': Gobble, Gobble, Google

Wow! I was so busy this holiday weekend and I didn't even shop! And I was so busy that I forgot to blurb on about this week's Surfin', which talks about Google and my editor's fascination with Google's Elmer Fudd interface.

Which reminds me that on Thanksgiving Day, we took the bus to NYC and watched the Macy's parade. Elmer Fudd was not among the balloons in the parade, but we did see Snoopy, Scooby Doo, and the weird silver "Playboy Bunny" balloon!

Read this week's Surfin', then come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

nutty weather

It is 74° F at 1 PM according to my weather station at my house. Yesterday, it was almost as warm. And this is the beginning of the fourth week of October!

During October, the temperature has only gone below 40° F once: 39° F for about an hour around dawn on the 13th. The high was 83° F recorded on the 5th and 6th of the month. The average for the month so far is a hair under 60° F.

On the 13th, I picked all the tomatoes and peppers that were worth picking. I put the peppers in the fridge and the set the tomatoes on a shelf in the garage to ripen. The next day, I intended to pull up the plants and put them in the compost pile, but I never got around to it

The weather started warming up again, so I continued watering the plants. The tiny tomatoes and peppers I did not pick are now growing to full size and they will be ready picking for picking soon.

This weather is nuts!

bionic woman advertisement

My aunt subscribes to Entertainment Weekly. She gave my sister a pile of recent back issues and my sister passed them on to me when she was through with them.

The September 28th issue included an advertisement for the new Bionic Woman television series. The ad was a four-page insert printed on a heavier stock of paper than the magazine's normal page stock.

The first (cover) page is black with "A NEW LIFE BEGINS" printed in white. Turn the page and it is a two-page spread of the bionic woman's eyes. When you open the two-page spread completely, her right eye lights up in an unnatural green color.

I removed the insert from the magazine to check it out more closely. I slit open the bottom of the page on which the magic eye was printed and found two small circuit boards mounted inside connected to each other with two wires.

The larger board had two "watch" batteries mounted on it and an appendage on the side. I assume the appendage is a sensor that detects when the page is opened.

The other board provides the light (I assume with an LED) for the eye.

I was impressed. This is a very expensive ad that most people are just going to throw it away with the magazine.

I wonder how much this advertisement cost? It was not cheap.
And did anyone consider the environmental issues regarding the proper disposal/recycling of the batteries used in this advertisement?

out of sync

I have been a fan of the Boston Red Sox since 1958.

How did I become so afflicted?

Back in the spring of 1958, Dad bought me my first pack of baseball cards. Opening the pack, I found a stick of gum and five baseball cards. Included in the five was Topps card number 1, Ted Williams.

I showed Dad my cards and he said that Ted Williams was the best, so I hooked my wagon up to Ted's team and have been following the trials and tribulations of the Scarlet Hose ever since.

Later that spring, Dad bought me a Red Sox yearbook and he bought me one every new baseball season until I could afford my own.

Forty-nine years later, I realized that I had not bought a yearbook this year with less than three weeks left in the baseball season. I had a complete run of yearbooks from 1958 to 2006 and I sure did not want to break that run, so I started shopping for the 2007 yearbook.

I figured I would find one online, but I could not find one.

I looked through magazine racks whenever I saw one, but still no luck.

Yesterday, I went to Wal*Mart to buy some cement to fix a broken tile and before I paid for the cement, I checked the magazine rack and, voila, I found a copy of the yearbook!

After I paid for my stuff and walked to the exit, I passed shelves of Christmas decorations and felt doubly lucky that my unsold Red Sox yearbook wasn't replaced with a Charlie Brown Christmas comic book on the magazine rack!

e-mail weirdness

Whenever I check my e-mail for the first time on any given day, I expect to find 50 to 100 new e-mails. Most of it is junk, some of it legit, but I can always expect a large quantity first thing in the morning.

Today, there was nothing new in my two e-mail accounts that are served by different Internet service providers (ISPs). A few new e-mails have come in since I first checked about two hours ago, but nothing like the amount I usually receive.

What gives?

If both accounts were on the same ISP, then I'd figure that the ISP was at fault, but the accounts are on different ISPs!

I don't miss the junk, but I am afraid that some real e-mail has been lost overnight.

Nuts!

beware the stare

Back in 1960, the commercials for Village of the Damned were so scary even on a black and white television set that I had no desire to see the movie! Why pay a quarter to go see the film at a theater when I was already having nightmares from the commercials for free?

Surfin': If It Looks Like A Ducting...

Two-meter band openings and a unique way to spot them is the topic of this week’s installment of Surfin’. After you read Surfin’, you can leave your comments here.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

144-MHz band opening

Every evening after work, I drop off my briefcase in my home office/shack and check the status of 144.39 MHz as displayed on my computer screen running APRS. Last night was no different except that there must have been a nice band opening on 2 meters during the day.

It looked like your classic summer tropospheric ducting event with loads of stations received by my station all clustered along the East Coast down to the Virginia-North Carolina state lines. The most distant station received was WB4YNF-4 in Ahoskie, NC, approximately 430 miles away!

There was one station I received that was a bit of an anomaly: K3ARL-1 near State College, PA, approximately 267 miles west/southwest of WA1LOU. It is inland and far from the other stations huddled along the coast and I am not sure how my reception of that station fits into the tropospheric ducting model.

white MD-80 mystery

Thursday morning, I took my daughter to the airport (BDL) to catch a flight to Phoenix. After she disappeared into the bowels of the terminal, I headed home.

Exiting the short-term parking lot ($2.50 for 1/2 hour), I noticed an MD-80 moving slowly on the tarmac in front of me. This was not your everyday MD-80. It had no passenger windows, it was painted white, and the only insignia was a small US flag on the side (behind the wing, but ahead of the engine) with an N-something identification number below the flag.

Friday afternoon, I walked my dogs and as we headed back home, I hear a jet airplane approaching from the north. It was louder than most, so I figured it must be low. When it cleared the trees blocking my view, it was indeed low and it was a white MD-80 just like the one I saw the previous morning. My guess is that it was the same plane having just left BDL, which is less than 25 miles away.

I am familiar with the routes of planes in my neck of the woods and everything related to BDL in my neighborhood flies north into BDL. I never see a plane flying south from BDL, but my white MD-80 was flying south from BDL.

This unusual plane and its unusual route caused me to believe that this plane was involved in some kind of government operation.

I began researching the mystery on the Internet and I had my answer quickly via AIRLINERS.NET. On the web site's discussion list, the white MD-80 puzzle was solved: U.S. Marshals use it to transport prisoners.

I highly recommend AIRLINERS.NET for information and photos regarding aviation. By today's count, the web site has 1,188,164 photos on line!

By the way, the white MD-80 looked spectacular winging its way over Downtown Wolcott.

scared & scarred by the silver screen

My daughter bought me some postcards for my collection. The stash included some depicting posters of 1950's science fiction films including the original Godzilla film titled Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

IMDB says that the film was released in 1954. Amazon says 1956. I'm guessing that 1954 was the release date in Japan and 1956 was the release date stateside because I saw that movie at the State Theater when it came out and I was 3 years old in 1954 and 5 years old in 1956, so 1956 is more like it.

I remember asking my Mom to take me to see that movie. She was a fan of horror flicks, so she agreed and took my sister and I downtown to see the film one afternoon.

I remember the long line in front of theater to buy tickets. The line was so long that it went up East Main Street and turned the corner down Brown Street. Mom thought the line was too long and so she decided that we would return to see the film on another day.

Eventually, we did see the film and it scared the crap out of me! I had Godzilla nightmares for years.

Remember that scene when a procession of people are walking up the side of a hill? Godzilla pops up on the other side and everyone in a panic runs back down the side of the hill. Well, many a time, I relived that scene in my nightmares with my family and I in that procession of people going up and down the side of the hill.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters was the first of the many "monster movies" that scared and scarred me in theaters when I was a kid. I will write about the others in the future.

click, click

Yesterday, an intense thunderstorm blew through Downtown Wolcott in the late afternoon. While I was waiting out the storm in our family room, I heard a loud click-click. My wife also heard the click-click two rooms away in the kitchen. The click-click was followed by a very bright flash and the loudest thunderclap that I have ever remembered hearing.

I remarked to my wife that I think that lightning strike was very close!

I got up out of my chair and inspected the inside of the house to see if everything seemed normal. The only abnormal thing I found was the slight smell of ozone as I passed by the closed slider door that opens onto the deck.

I was curious about the two clicks, so I posted my experience on the wxqc (weather data quality) email list, which "is for Citizen Weather station operators who have an interest in improving the quality of the data that they report. This includes aspects like the siting of stations, how to calibrate sensors, how to interpret data quality problems and other general topics of interest."

I received a bunch replies. The consensus seem to follow what retired meteorologist, Thomas Giella, KN4LF, wrote:

"You were hearing the sound of the upward leader moving skyward from your tower, tree, telephone pole, etc. just before it met the downward stepped leader from the cloud and the lightning discharge occurred. You were VERY close to those strikes and lucky to have been unharmed and/or have suffered no property damage."

Wow!