October 5, 2024

This Week in Amateur Radio

North America's Premiere Amateur Radio News Magazine

Meteor over ham radio antenna

Meteor Shower Gives DAB a Temporary Boost

The annual Perseids meteor shower is known for its reliable stream of shooting stars, but one DX-er in Finland enjoyed some German DAB signals to accompany the show.

Koe Kone, a DX hobbyist based in Turku, Finland, enjoys trying to track down distant broadcast signals and his YouTube channel is full of recordings of catches from around the Baltic Sea and beyond. But in the early hours of Aug. 12, 2023, during the height of the Perseids, he captured the first documented instance of VHF band III DAB signals being affected by meteors.

That activity in the upper atmosphere and even outer space can affect radio broadcasting is nothing new. Differences in the ionosphere between day and night affect how far AM signals travel, and temperature inversions in the troposphere can cause FM signals to “skip” to distant markets.

Read more – RadioWorld: