SDR Meteor Detection - New recruit with many questions

[t50ufo]

Hi all
Happy New Year and Greetings form Northern Ireland.

I have been reading through the thread Meteor Detection with RTL-SDR by Stormchaser using GRAVES radar in France.

Having come across this thread on the forum, I am fascinated by this project and the fact that is doable at all.
Having dabbled in my teenage years with shortwave radio and having a keen interest in Astronomy and elctronics, I think I am a prime candidate for setting up a receiving station! Now retired and given the terrible weather of late  - this would make for a great “tandem” Astro project.

Not being too familiar with the hardware and software may I pick your brains with some(many) questions:

HARDWARE
So I need an SDR Dongle type receiver. I see many referenced - is there a particular model that is best suited? I see a variation in prices too. Airspy Mini approx £120. Nooelec models £30/£40 and RTL-SDR Blog R820T2 £37. Laptop - fine on that one!
The use of a Raspberry Pi is mentioned - what purpose does this bring to the table and what about associated software for that.

Antenna. Again not too familiar with high frequency Antennas. I would like to place this in loft. Again I see this one referenced
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262851439266?hash=item3d332aaaa2:g:ef0AAOSw~AVYofkH
Approx £80 Again any help on this or an alternative or better Antenna would be great.

SOFTWARE
SDRSharp and SpectrumLab will these work with any model SDR dongle receiver?

Is the data produced of any use to Astronomical bodies or citizen science projects? - this would be a bonus.

I am very keen to have a go but as you see I need a fair few nudges in the right direction. Want to order up the right bits first - no doubt many more questions after that!

Thanks

Trev

[fozzybear]

Hi there is another thread on here don't know if you have read thru it

 

[The Admiral]

hi Trev,

The slow response to your questions belies the number of threads on here related to meteor scatter detection. But they do go back a long way, and will need digging out, so there is a lot of information available. I got into the topic at the end of 2014! Mind you, I am no longer active in this area, and can't say I'm up to speed. I used a Funcube dongle with a self-built Yagi antenna in the loft. An article appeared in the S@N journal, which forms a good base. That can be found in this old thread:

A range of dongles have been used successfully for this. Loft mounting an antenna does work, though you will be more prone to local mains-born interference, and your sensitivity is likely to be down, depending on 'what's in the way'. But I got adequate sensitivity. Note that they are quite big in real life so will need some space.

There are a range of commercially available antennas, but unless you need dual band for other purposes, the simpler the better in my view. Here's one such, but there are other suppliers. https://www.innovantennas.com/en/shop-page/1/vhf-uhf-ham-radio-antennas/144mhz-low-noise-lfa-yagis.html

Spectrum Lab takes a bit of getting to grips with, but you'll need a script, and a small number have been produced and are available if you search for them.

All I can suggest is that you dig out the old posts and see what helps you.

Good luck

Ian

[The Admiral]

Here's another link. It's a long thread but lots of info.

Ian

[t50ufo]

Thanks fozzybear and The Admiral for taking time to reply. I will indeed read through all I can.

Never too late to experiment and explore. I think I will get a receiver dongle and a specific antenna for Meteor detection and perhaps a wide range one also to explore the airwaves!

Others are doing it successfully so with a bit of searching and hands on - I should be able to get it going!

The hard part looks to be scripts and SpectrumLab but no doubt there will be some tutorials out there.

All the Best. The journey begins!

Trev

[fozzybear]

7 hours ago, t50ufo said:

The hard part looks to be scripts and SpectrumLab but no doubt there will be some tutorials out there.

if you look at the thread i posted in their there is a script file to save for Spectrumlab and other software to install. Alas I was an active RSGB Ham with  M3CEQ and 2E0CEQ call signs but when moved to France did not take my full licence so silent key since...

MetScat_MJMM.USR.txt

[fozzybear]

https://www.popastro.com/main_spa1/meteor/radio-meteor-observing-2020/

[t50ufo]

Thanks again for your reply and the lnfo about the script and the link to the article. Spent most of the day reading through some stuff and found that article too. Have ordered up some bits to make the antenna!

[catburglar]

I started meteor detection using the article from popastro- as a guide. The loft  mounted yagi gave good detection of echoes from Graves (I’m located in North Wales) and I didn’t have too many problems with interference.

I did also get detection software working on a raspberry pi using echoes meter or detection software (https://sourceforge.net/projects/echoes/)

I haven’t been running it for a little while, but you should have some fun getting it up and running.