Introduction Meteors can be counted 24 hours a day, without any human intervention, using a very basic VHF receiver. But why bother counting them? That's a good question! The answer is on the Meteors page. About this site There's heaps of information available on the web about meteor counting. (See the Links page for some of the better offerings.) The sole purpose of this site is to provide Australian meteor observers with a few suggestions about setting up an automatic meteor observation station using passive radar techniques. It doesn't contain state-of-the-art nitty gritty, nor does it explain everything in detail. State-of-the-art equipment is financially beyond most of us, so the emphasis here is on improvising with junked consumer devices and a bit of ingenuity rather than using highly specialised circuitry and complex techniques. It's possible to put together some basic but very effective equipment for less than $100 (Australian), and maybe half that if you have a well-endowed junk box. "Passive radar" means exploiting distant low band VHF radio stations to provide a signal that bounces off meteor trails. You receive these echoes using a standard FM receiver which is connected by some simple circuitry to a computer. The computer's job is simply to log (a) the time the echo was received and (b) how long it lasted. We're looking at the low end of the meteor counting market here! Once you gain some experience you may want to expand into more subtle observations using more sensitive receivers and different wavelengths. The most important part of this site is the links section. Almost every meteor observer in the world knows more about the topic than me, so all this site is doing is providing a gateway to the excellent sites that already exist on the web. No single site will answer all your questions. Visit as many as possible (and please if any of the links fall over). I have included some resources on this site that may not be found in a suitable form elsewhere, mainly information specifically of interest to Australian observers. There's also an introduction to meteors and their ability to bounce VHF signals, but there are doubtless better and more scientifically rigorous ones elsewhere. By all means read what's here, but make sure you follow up the links to other sites as well to get a better perspective.
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