Satgen504  Magnificent Leonids 98  by GM4IHJ  (BID SGEN504) 1998-11-21

The following is a personal diary of the Leonids 98 Super Meteor
Shower , as seen from Scotland 16th to 19th November.

16th 1000ut Arrived home . Switched on 6m receiver tuned 48.251 MHz 
for distant European TV carriers. Fed receiver audio to AF9Y FFTDSP
spectrum analysis program on computer . Surprise Surprise, had
expected a dull empty pre shower record . But got wall to wall meteors
instead. Had shower peaked early or was this a precursor to a monster
shower? Mostly continuous small meteors at first but superb for MS
communication.
16th 1200ut continuous small meteors now accompanied by much stronger
burst lasting up to 2 minutes. Just like dense sporadic E on 2m.
16th 1400ut shower decreasing as radiant went down to horizon ,
proving this was all the Leonids.

16th 2215ut radiant coming above horizon . Continuous radio meteor
scatter from small meteors together with one or two big bursts every 5
minutes or so. Several bright meteor trails visible despite clouds

17th early am , strong radio meteor activity , particularly from
continuous stream of small meteors. Gaps in clouds reveal 5 or more
good strong visible meteor trails every minute , around 0400ut and
there after until dawn at 0720ut. 
17th 0700 to 1200ut wall to wall small meteors on fft display, Echo
levels nearly steady at +30dB over noise. Strongest shower ever seen
at IHJ.
17th 1207ut sudden drop in small meteor numbers
17th 1218ut continuous long single ? bursts lasting several minutes
providing perfect SSB VHF 6m and 2m contacts all over Europe. 
17th 1240 to 1330ut drop in number of small meteors persists.
17th 1355ut to 1406 ut a tremendous period of firm long contact meteor
scatter on VHF bands as fft display shows steady 35+dB over noise echo
which looked like a single burst but slight fades suggested was a
compound of several echoes of at least 2 minutes duration each.
17th 1415ut begining to see some reduction as radiant goes down to
horizon , but several long burst seen even after "official " sub
horizon time.

17th 2215ut radiant coming above horizon. Some small meteors but few
big bursts. Sky completely overcast, no chance of visuals.
17th 2340ut Limited activity suggests major action ceased for now.

18th Early morning , continuous small meteors but very few long
echoes.
18th 0745ut Sudden onset of very strong long duration echo ( 3 minutes
plus) interupts nearly continuous train of small meteor echoes.
18th 1113ut Continuous small echoes till radiant at horizon 1430ut
18th 2300ut not much activity

19th 0730 to 1430ut mostly near continuous small echoes with one or
two long bursts. Clearly the best meteor shower ever witnessed at IHJ.
Generally too cloud for good visuals but predawn 17th visually superb.