"In 1965" George told me, "I was the only SV station equipped for contacts via meteor scatter so it was easy for me to make contacts with many European stations.The longest distance I achieved was withUA1DZ a Physics Professor at the University of Leningrad in the Soviet Union."Norman: "Forgive me for interrupting you, but please explain in simple terms what you mean by meteor scatter."George: "Meteor scatter is a way of making contacts on 2 metres by reflection from meteorites - `shooting stars' as they are called colloquially- which we see on clear nights during the summer.Of course they are not falling stars at all - they are meteorites which burn up when they hit the earth's atmosphere, leaving the trail that we see.We take advantage of this phenomenon for bouncing our signals off the trail but unfortunately it is a very short-lived event.Once when there were a lot of meteorites I was able to maintain contact with LX1SI of Luxembourg for a whole three minutes on SSB.It was during the period of the Persides which usually occur for a week in August when the earth's orbit takes it through this cloud of space debris.Millions of meteorites can be as small as a grain of sand and of course leave no visible trail when they strike the earth's atmosphere.The earth goes through other major clusters in April and in December.The phenomenon can also affect signals on lower frequencies.One can be in QSO on 20 metres via ground wave with a station a couple of hundred miles away with signals around s2 to s3.Suddenly one or two words are heard at s9 which indicates a momentary reflection off a meteorite trail."George also explained that in order to defeat the brevity of the time when communication was possible it was customary to record a message on a tape recorder and transmit it at high speed.The other station would also record at high speed and then play back at normal speed to hear the message normally.
I asked SV1AB to tell me about Sporadic E propagation.
"In this form of contact the signals are reflected from an ionised area 90 to 120 kilometres above the surface of the earth.I have been having contacts by this method for about 18 years now even before the advent of SSB on two metres.I have had contacts with England and with Moscow to the north-east of Athens.The phenomenon occurs for three or four months during the summer, and never during the winter.The ionisation movesvery rapidly sometimes - you may be talking to a station in Malta and he suddenly disappears and a station in Yugoslavia comes up on the same frequency.""Every summer" George continued, "we get Troposcatter which allows communication on all frequencies from VHF to 10 GHz even.This type of propagation occurs during certain special meteorological conditions, like high barometric pressure and extreme heat.We sometimes hear stations in Malta and Sicily with very loud signals.""In 1966 I built an aerial array consisting of 8 nine-element Yagis for 2 metres with the axis of rotation pointing to the North Star enabling me to track the Moon automatically.I was hoping to make some Moonbounce contacts, but at that time it was very difficult to construct low noise preamplifiers.After many days and hours of trying I managed a single brief contact with F8DO in France.Some time later I heard that Mike Staal K6MYC had heard me in California.
"The funny thing about this aerial array was that it enabled me to receive television signals from Nigeria on Channel 3 but only when I raised it up to an elevation of nearly 90 degrees."Norman: "I understand that Costas Georgiou SV1OE is the only Greek amateur who has had successful QSOs via Moonbounce."George: "Yes indeed.But it was many years later, using a low noise GASFET preamplifier.K1WHS in the U.S.A.has an array consisting of48 Yagis which enable him to contact stations with more modest installations.
