8 October 2024

After about a month and a half from the beginning of the meteor scatter project with a satisfactory success, we wanted to make a small improvement to the reception system by doubling the antenna.
From the beginning the antenna was a four element 1.5 lambda boom length with a gain of about 8.5 dbd. We found it very performing so I quickly build a second one twin antenna.
The total gain at the moment is increased to about 11 dbd, stacking between booms is only about 1 meter so to get a fatter main lobe, it’s not an ham radio DX antenna, for the project was better to get a wider capture area.
The result was since the first start really impressive! The average per hour of the captured events was more than doubled immediately.
Take a look at the chart:
AntennaChart
The orange line represents the day with maximum recorded events in semptember with only one antenna, the blue line shows the first complete 24 working hours of the system with 2 antennas.
Probably the higher gain and the wider capture area give to the system many more and stronger echoes, what was under the noise level before is now a good signal to sample.
What follows is an example of what the receiver catch during a non-peak period:
meteorNow

Antenna work in progress
Antenna work in progress
The stacking at APA Observatory
The stacking at APA Observatory