HF Meteor Trail Reflections Observed at Anchorage, Alaska USA

Talk by Whitham D Reeve

Many interesting phenomena can be observed in the high frequency radio band including meteor trail reflections, radio blackouts, sudden frequency deviations, aurora reflections, aircraft reflections, and propagation anomalies due to ionospheric patches and blobs. Detections of all these phenomena at Anchorage involve a terrestrial transmitter and terrestrial receiver separated by a distance great enough to result in skywave propagation between them.

This talk focuses on meteor trail reflections, which also are known by the names meteor echoes, meteor scatter, meteor propagation and radio meteors. The transmissions originate at the WWV and WWVH time-frequency stations approximately 4000 km away, are reflected by the ionized trails left by tiny meteors as they vaporize in Earth’s upper atmosphere, and are detected by a receiver at Anchorage.

Whitham D. Reeve

• University of Alaska Fairbanks Engineering College Graduate
• Bachelor of Science: Electrical Engineering
• Master of Science: Electrical Engineering
• Lived, educated and worked in Alaska entire life
• Telecommunications & radio engineer
• Owner, Reeve Engineers since 1975
• Retired engineering license in 2009
• Manufacture instrumentation and radio electronics for radio astronomy since 2008
• Established three radio observatories in Alaska