Meteor burst communications

[2] When these meteoroids begin to burn up, they create a glowing trail of ionized particles (called a meteor) in the E layer of the atmosphere that can persist for up to several seconds.

[citation needed] The earliest direct observation of interaction between meteors and radio propagation was reported in 1929 by Hantaro Nagaoka of Japan.

In 1944, while researching a radar system that was "pointed up" to detect the V-2 missiles falling on London, James Stanley Hey confirmed that the meteor trails were in fact reflecting radio signals.

In 1946 the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found a direct correlation between enhancements in VHF radio signals and individual meteors.

[citation needed] Their project, "JANET" (named for Janus, who looked both ways), sent bursts of data pre-recorded on magnetic tape from their radar research station in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to Toronto, a distance exceeding 2,000 km.

[citation needed] A more recent study is the Advanced Meteor Burst Communications System (AMBCS), a testbed set up by SAIC under DARPA funding.

[citation needed] The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) used meteor scatter extensively in its SNOTEL system for over 40 years, but discontinued this use in 2023.

[citation needed] Over 900 snow water content gauging stations in the Western United States were equipped with radio transmitters that relied upon meteor-scatter communications to send measurements to a data center.

The use of Morse code has been more popular in Europe, where amateur radio operators used modified tape recorders, and later computer programs, to send messages at transmission speeds as high as 800 words per minute.