FIGURE 5.2
AMCA is intended to be run for at least one year in order to sample the rate of meteor influx all along the Earth's orbit. At the writing of this document we have come to the time when system development has stabilized and data recording can begin. This section shows the format and form of the data we are acquiring.
Figure 5.1 shows the format of the output in a typical hourly data file. The first lines contain the process and header parameters. The remainder of the file lists summaries of hourly sampling. The date and time of each counting interval are in the left hand columns, and refer to the middle of the time interval in Easter Standard Time. This is followed by the average signal power in dBm, the quiet time in percent, and the average reference audio correlation in percent. These data allow characterization of receiving conditions during the counting interval. The next three columns contain the false, long, and meteor counts. The meteor counts include both long and short echoes. The rightmost column gives the data quality flag.
The first test of a meteor counter is observation of the diurnal variation in meteor rates, with higher numbers coming in the hours around 6 AM local time and a minimum occurring near 6 PM. This is due to the observer being located on the side of the Earth facing the apex of it motion in the morning, and vice versa in the evening. Figure 5.2 shows hourly rates with 6 PM on the left and 6 AM on the right, and demonstrates that AMCA has detected the diurnal variation.
Trigger Size 3 dB Quiet Signal -127 dB 0 = off Audio Increase 0 % correlation Long Duration 10 0.1 sec DB offset 0 dB Megahertz 61.24 Band LSB Antenna BEAM Beam Pointing 315 Radio R8500 Squelch OFF Lock switch ON Noise blanker ON BFO frequency .33 KHz IF shift 0 Atten/Gain 0 AGC speed FAST Audio filter OFF Quality Flags: -2: flagged manually as bad -1: meteors < 2 * false or quiet < 50 0: OK +1: flagged manually as good <-- MID TIME --> <---- AVERAGE ----> <------ COUNT -------> QUL MO DA YR HR MN SC SIGNAL QUIET AUDIO FALSE LONG METEOR FLG ======== ======== ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== ====== === 2 1 97 0 33 59 -127 93 11 0 6 47 0 2 1 97 1 33 59 -127 93 9 0 2 57 0 2 1 97 2 33 59 -127 91 9 1 6 66 0 2 1 97 3 33 59 -127 93 8 0 9 74 0 2 1 97 4 33 59 -127 91 8 0 9 79 0 2 1 97 5 33 59 -127 92 18 1 5 84 0 2 1 97 6 33 59 -127 87 17 3 6 100 0 2 1 97 7 33 59 -127 87 19 2 3 85 0 2 1 97 8 33 59 -127 79 21 4 7 81 0 2 1 97 9 33 59 -127 78 22 2 8 84 0 2 1 97 10 33 59 -127 89 17 1 3 54 0 2 1 97 11 33 59 -127 88 18 1 4 48 0 2 1 97 12 33 59 -127 90 18 0 4 47 0 2 1 97 13 33 59 -127 93 16 0 3 37 0 2 1 97 14 33 59 -127 92 19 1 0 24 0 2 1 97 15 33 59 -127 95 17 0 5 22 0 2 1 97 16 33 59 -127 94 17 1 1 9 0 2 1 97 17 33 59 -127 92 20 1 2 11 0 2 1 97 18 33 59 -127 91 22 0 0 8 0 2 1 97 19 33 59 -127 94 21 0 1 12 0 2 1 97 20 33 59 -127 96 19 0 1 14 0 2 1 97 21 33 59 -127 96 16 0 2 17 0 2 1 97 22 33 59 -127 96 11 0 3 26 0 2 1 97 23 33 59 -127 95 15 1 2 36 0