A Ham radio operator, George Ure was recently blogging about pulse noise above the MUF that seemed to be coming in over the North Pole from Europe on HF bands above 14 MHz. It appeared to be maximum on a beam heading of about 030 (true) from his location in East Texas.

One of his readers suggested that the source appears to be Russian -- one of the 60 meteor burst communications (MBC) stations responsible for managing tones between transmit and receive stations so they can time the sending of data bursts off a meteor trail.

George's reader also linked to a file about meteor burst communications that was declassified by the NSA in 2008. It's an interesting read because it not only gives a good 'MBC 101' tutorial, but the redactions throughout the paper indicate what the government finds most interesting about meteor communications. You can read it here in PDF.

In another blogspot site I've had up for a year or two, I've been tracking the increasing incidence of major fireballs being spotted around the globe. These aren't your average meteor showers… these are stunning, huge, brilliant fireballs that light up the night, and sometimes create 'booms' so loud that people's front doors are thrown open. Amazing! I might not be able to bounce signals off a meteor trail anytime soon, but I might be able to hit something that big… the celestial equivalent of 'hitting the side of the barn'!

Stay tuned, as the meteor list data will get cross-posted to this site soon, along with my archives on interesting solar flare and magnetosphere events.