Ex radar tec here can confirm that Longest range we picked up a target with the dish flat war 102 miles. Tracked it overhead and down to the horizon. We were in the Gulf only target it could have been is Concorde flying at 40000 feet if the target was sea level the range would have been about 15 miles with the dish flat
As an FYI on this subject I recall reading a DoD study and a follow up series of equipment studies where they used this to design, build and deploy systems to military units to allow them to use this effect to extend communications over the horizon and make it harder for an enemy to intercept and/or track. For a group (the "Government" :) ) who is supposed to be "hiding" the shape of the Earth they go spend a lot of time, effort, and money in actually using the 'globe' to get their mission done :)
In Belgium, the public astronomical observatory of Ypres has a radio beacon aimed upwards and in a narrow wavelength. This can be used using a radio receiver by amateur astronomers in a large area around the beacon.
In the UK there is a TV series called, "The sky at night", AFAIK it's the longest running TV show in history Anyway one night they were predicting a meteor shower but they got it wrong, it was a day earlier. It just so happened that it was a crystal clear night in my location. Meteors were arriving every 10 seconds! I called my wife to come and witness this but she was in bed with the flu. The next night was slightly overcast and the rate of meteors had declined. Sometimes you just have to be in the right spot :) P.S. I've also seen "Northern Lights"that were so intense they were all south of me. The sky to the north was all black. For the curious I'm at about 58°N in the middle of nowhere.
Having played with Television aerials to hunt for the right direction to receive the old analog signals, my aerials similar to the design you are using had a relatively narrow cone of reception. So you will be setup to receive signals scattered into your direction along that line. The scatter will be stronger with size of object and with closeness to the radio source. You have multiple radio sources. So if an object was travelling along your line it would flare up as it flew near enough to each radio source. Perhaps that could contribute to rare "trains" of objects. They aren't say 6 objects but just two objects flying over three radio sources near to your line of reception.
The key to this being evidence of Earth curve is the radio stations not being receivable even when the aerial is pointed straight at them. The scatter reception demonstrates their direct signal strength is more than enough to reach you if a piddling bit of scattered signal reaches you. Thus something must be in the way. Unfortunately that first step of confirming non-reception isn't something someone can do for them. They must do it for themselves, and flerfs in my experience only do stuff to confirm their bias.
The meteor fence? First I've heard of it. Looks like I'm learning something new today. Well that pretty much applies every time I watch one of these videos. On AM radio stations - it hasn't happened often, but there was one time while I lived in Michigan I picked up an AM station in Florida.
AM in the right conditions can use troposcopic or Ionosphere reflections and you can get them at long range As you go down in frequency you get longer and longer ranges through bouncing
@@gowdsake7103 Don't know if people still do this now, but I do remember there was a kind of contest with short wave and ham radio operators to post their longest bounce receptions. Don't recall the longest ones but most of those posted were over 1,000 miles. There was a Usenet newsgroup, back in the days before the web became a thing. I would look in on it sometimes just to see what had been posted.
@@StarSong936 I was in the RN we could use this to talk directly to Gibraltar from the uk on 8 channels Only on 1 day for my years time there were we not able to pick up a single channel
@@gowdsake7103 You're from the UK and were in the Royal Navy? That's so cool. I'm from the US and I was in the Air Force for 4 years. Not much to say there really. I worked on a computer system responsible for message traffic between missile silos as well as it reported readiness levels for aircraft capable of flying.
@@StarSong936 I mostly worked on UHF radio and Sonar but also had 2 years on the 909 radar which was an absolute beast. I also had terms with the 965 radar which was quite old by then and the 992 medium range search radar I was lucky I visited over 30 countries including the US got drunk in most of them ! happy days
A frequency that is not shared by another radio station in my area... I'm from Montréal, and we have a pretty much saturated FM band. Montréal is one of the city who have the most FM radio stations, and all the commercial ones are profitable, then, there are a few community stations...
Looks like you have Lansing on your map. Where I grew up was near Hillsdale, in the tri state area where Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan all come together. I was born in Detroit.
What a cool experiment, I must have a go at this. One thing though, although this experiment proves the earth to be a sphere, don't expect flerfs to understand any of it, it's far too complex for them, it involves research and thinking something they can't do.
Interesting use of SDR! Right now my brain is working on "maybe there is a way to set up a system so that you could get an idea of the track of the meteor as it vaporizes?". (I have SDR and a long-time background with radio - and a little knowledge of astronomy.) I've got a picture or two I'd like to send you - one I think you'll get a laugh at, and the other of an old machinist's slide rule. Is there some way to do that?
Have the flerfs come up with an explanation for meteors? I am sure "not real" "fallen angels" and hand waved word salad may be used. And thank you for a neat home experiment. One can be a radio astronomer without building a 100 meter dish.
14:04 the background signal seems to be quieter while the meteor's up, and it has a couple of weaker streaks left and right of it in the waterfall display. What's causing that?
@@ResearchFlatMoon I've seen those parallel lines on a waterfall display before, but no explanation for them. It's like the FM transmitter is emitting a signal at a single frequency, a whistle or hiss being generated from a fault in a circuit. Why it would appear in a reflection from a meteor but not in a reflection from dust I don't know. Also, it's strange that the meteor trail reflects the carrier wave frequency not the whole signal. The only thing I can think of that's like that is fluorescence, as if you have something up there that, temporarily, absorbs a wide range of wavelengths and re-emits that energy in a narrow band. Fluorescence just _has_ an output frequency, though. It doesn't _reflect,_ as far as I know.
@Q Branch In other words, the receiver gets dazzled and does the equivalent of reducing the camera aperture? I thought of that, but it's _not_ dimming the more local signal to its left, and it seems really unlikely that the signal from over the horizon reflecting off the meteor trail would be strong enough to trigger that but the adjacent local signal would be strong enough to stay strong through it and not strong enough to trigger it. Could the software have AGC on the selected band only? Even if that is it, that doesn't explain the appearance of a "whistle" in the signal at that point.
If a piece of man-made debris plunges into the atmosphere it will cause an ionized column that will reflect radio waves. Our simple apparatus can detect these bounces because the ionized air column typically extends for several kilometers, vastly larger than the minute particle responsible. This technique is too insensitive to detect a bounce from a very small object like a rock or a satellite by itself. Back in the 90s there was an especially active Perseid meteor shower. After staying up for much of the night watching the show, on the drive back home through Ottawa my car radio was picking up numerous US and other distant FM stations. I had experienced nothing like that before.
Ex radar tec here can confirm that
Longest range we picked up a target with the dish flat war 102 miles. Tracked it overhead and down to the horizon. We were in the Gulf only target it could have been is Concorde flying at 40000 feet
if the target was sea level the range would have been about 15 miles with the dish flat
Very cool.
One night, I saw the most incredible bolide out at Baker Lake in WA. It was midnight, and we were hanging out on the beach.
As an FYI on this subject I recall reading a DoD study and a follow up series of equipment studies where they used this to design, build and deploy systems to military units to allow them to use this effect to extend communications over the horizon and make it harder for an enemy to intercept and/or track. For a group (the "Government" :) ) who is supposed to be "hiding" the shape of the Earth they go spend a lot of time, effort, and money in actually using the 'globe' to get their mission done :)
Yep
Very informative.
Yep! That’s Dutch! Greetings from southern Netherlands! 🇳🇱 Keep up the good work there in northern Michigan! 👍🏼
In Belgium, the public astronomical observatory of Ypres has a radio beacon aimed upwards and in a narrow wavelength.
This can be used using a radio receiver by amateur astronomers in a large area around the beacon.
In the UK there is a TV series called, "The sky at night", AFAIK it's the longest running TV show in history
Anyway one night they were predicting a meteor shower but they got it wrong, it was a day earlier. It just so happened that it was a crystal clear night in my location. Meteors were arriving every 10 seconds!
I called my wife to come and witness this but she was in bed with the flu.
The next night was slightly overcast and the rate of meteors had declined.
Sometimes you just have to be in the right spot :)
P.S. I've also seen "Northern Lights"that were so intense they were all south of me. The sky to the north was all black.
For the curious I'm at about 58°N in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe also address moon bouncing another time.
yep
Having played with Television aerials to hunt for the right direction to receive the old analog signals, my aerials similar to the design you are using had a relatively narrow cone of reception. So you will be setup to receive signals scattered into your direction along that line. The scatter will be stronger with size of object and with closeness to the radio source. You have multiple radio sources. So if an object was travelling along your line it would flare up as it flew near enough to each radio source. Perhaps that could contribute to rare "trains" of objects. They aren't say 6 objects but just two objects flying over three radio sources near to your line of reception.
The key to this being evidence of Earth curve is the radio stations not being receivable even when the aerial is pointed straight at them. The scatter reception demonstrates their direct signal strength is more than enough to reach you if a piddling bit of scattered signal reaches you. Thus something must be in the way. Unfortunately that first step of confirming non-reception isn't something someone can do for them. They must do it for themselves, and flerfs in my experience only do stuff to confirm their bias.
Correct and on occasion I’ve seen one show up on a station followed shortly thereafter with it hitting a second station
I Watched this live the other night, it was Facinating.
16:00 Those are some _even_ intervals between meteors.
Damm Dr. Bob, this looks like some ham radio stuff.
The meteor fence? First I've heard of it. Looks like I'm learning something new today. Well that pretty much applies every time I watch one of these videos.
On AM radio stations - it hasn't happened often, but there was one time while I lived in Michigan I picked up an AM station in Florida.
AM in the right conditions can use troposcopic or Ionosphere reflections and you can get them at long range
As you go down in frequency you get longer and longer ranges through bouncing
@@gowdsake7103 Don't know if people still do this now, but I do remember there was a kind of contest with short wave and ham radio operators to post their longest bounce receptions. Don't recall the longest ones but most of those posted were over 1,000 miles. There was a Usenet newsgroup, back in the days before the web became a thing. I would look in on it sometimes just to see what had been posted.
@@StarSong936 I was in the RN we could use this to talk directly to Gibraltar from the uk on 8 channels
Only on 1 day for my years time there were we not able to pick up a single channel
@@gowdsake7103 You're from the UK and were in the Royal Navy? That's so cool. I'm from the US and I was in the Air Force for 4 years. Not much to say there really. I worked on a computer system responsible for message traffic between missile silos as well as it reported readiness levels for aircraft capable of flying.
@@StarSong936 I mostly worked on UHF radio and Sonar but also had 2 years on the 909 radar which was an absolute beast. I also had terms with the 965 radar which was quite old by then and the 992 medium range search radar
I was lucky I visited over 30 countries including the US got drunk in most of them ! happy days
A frequency that is not shared by another radio station in my area... I'm from Montréal, and we have a pretty much saturated FM band. Montréal is one of the city who have the most FM radio stations, and all the commercial ones are profitable, then, there are a few community stations...
Looks like you have Lansing on your map. Where I grew up was near Hillsdale, in the tri state area where Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan all come together. I was born in Detroit.
Been there nice town and college
What a cool experiment, I must have a go at this.
One thing though, although this experiment proves the earth to be a sphere, don't expect flerfs to understand any of it, it's far too complex for them, it involves research and thinking something they can't do.
That first image has meteor spelled "meteoor," LOL! Still, great video, Dr. Bob
My bad
Hams have been doing meteor scatter for a while.
That is where the idea cam from
Thank you. This was very interesting.
Interesting use of SDR! Right now my brain is working on "maybe there is a way to set up a system so that you could get an idea of the track of the meteor as it vaporizes?". (I have SDR and a long-time background with radio - and a little knowledge of astronomy.)
I've got a picture or two I'd like to send you - one I think you'll get a laugh at, and the other of an old machinist's slide rule. Is there some way to do that?
Thanks Doc, I had no idea this was possible, so cool!
Has any fluffer commented on this yet? Sleezy warrior is going to blow a gasket.
No, "interesting" doesn't mean "it's a globe", it means "it's not flat".
depends if it is just as interesting in all directions and from multiple locations. Then it is a globe.
Get a Ham Radio license and send the radio signals yourself!
That is exactly what I am doing. See the Shamrock Banks Community Section and Friday's video on Bob the Science Guy
Have the flerfs come up with an explanation for meteors? I am sure "not real" "fallen angels" and hand waved word salad may be used.
And thank you for a neat home experiment. One can be a radio astronomer without building a 100 meter dish.
When asked, they generally ignore the question or deflect to another subject. Or they try the old, "we don't know, and we can never know" dodge.
Or you can build a 100 meter dish. Lol
@@ResearchFlatMoon True, true, but my neighbors would complain.😄
Meteors are bits falling off the dome aren't they?
@@Forest_Fifer Yes, and they taste just like gingerbread, yum.
14:04 the background signal seems to be quieter while the meteor's up, and it has a couple of weaker streaks left and right of it in the waterfall display. What's causing that?
I noticed that as well. What are your thoughts?
@@ResearchFlatMoon I've seen those parallel lines on a waterfall display before, but no explanation for them. It's like the FM transmitter is emitting a signal at a single frequency, a whistle or hiss being generated from a fault in a circuit. Why it would appear in a reflection from a meteor but not in a reflection from dust I don't know. Also, it's strange that the meteor trail reflects the carrier wave frequency not the whole signal. The only thing I can think of that's like that is fluorescence, as if you have something up there that, temporarily, absorbs a wide range of wavelengths and re-emits that energy in a narrow band. Fluorescence just _has_ an output frequency, though. It doesn't _reflect,_ as far as I know.
@Q Branch In other words, the receiver gets dazzled and does the equivalent of reducing the camera aperture? I thought of that, but it's _not_ dimming the more local signal to its left, and it seems really unlikely that the signal from over the horizon reflecting off the meteor trail would be strong enough to trigger that but the adjacent local signal would be strong enough to stay strong through it and not strong enough to trigger it. Could the software have AGC on the selected band only?
Even if that is it, that doesn't explain the appearance of a "whistle" in the signal at that point.
Am I still a member?
not sure
Just out of curiosity, does space debris (old separation bolts etc) show up or leave a different trail? Does it leave a flatter trail?
If a piece of man-made debris plunges into the atmosphere it will cause an ionized column that will reflect radio waves. Our simple apparatus can detect these bounces because the ionized air column typically extends for several kilometers, vastly larger than the minute particle responsible. This technique is too insensitive to detect a bounce from a very small object like a rock or a satellite by itself.
Back in the 90s there was an especially active Perseid meteor shower. After staying up for much of the night watching the show, on the drive back home through Ottawa my car radio was picking up numerous US and other distant FM stations. I had experienced nothing like that before.
Exactly
Funny
Funny?
@@ResearchFlatMoon no offense sorry. Its obvious the earth is round. The topic always makes me chuckle.