2010: Network of radio receivers, spread over Belgium, that makes use of forward scattering techniques to study the meteoroid population.
Belgian RAdio Meteor Stations (BRAMS) is a network of radio receivers, spread over Belgium. They use forward scattering techniques in order to study the meteoroid population. The network is an intense collaboration between the scientists at BIRA-IASB, radio-amateurs and other partners who host these receiving stations on a voluntary basis.
Delivery year: 2010 and following
Meteor traces registered in the BRAMS network
A transmitting beacon, installed in Dourbes at the Centre de Géophysique, sends out a 49.97 MHz signal with a constant power of 150 W.
The receiving stations are all equipped with a receiver and antenna system in order to listen to this beacon. Each meteoroid which enters the atmosphere, leaves a trail which can be monitored. By sending out a beacon, this transmitted signal is reflected by the tail of the entering meteoroid. Receiving stations monitor this to get an idea of the amount of meteoroids entering our atmosphere.
BRAMS receiving antenna
BIRA-IASB’s Engineering service helped in the building and installation of the transmitter in Dourbes, as well as in the building and installation of numerous receiving stations throughout Belgium.
Around 30 receiving stations are spread on the Belgian territory and have been equipped with hardware material procured by BIRA-IASB to listen to the beacon. The material is identical for each station, allowing an easier comparison of the data. Each station is using a three-element Yagi antenna, a commercial ICOM-R75 receiver, an external sound card (as analog/digital converter), a GPS clock (to synchronize the stations) and an amplitude calibrator designed at BIRA-IASB (to calibrate power profiles). A local PC is used to store the data.
BRAMS transmission beacon at Dourbes
The main objectives of this project are:
- to collect and standardize the meteor observations of all the stations;
- to write codes for automatic detection of underdense/overdense meteor echoes;
- to compute meteoroid flux densities for meteor showers and mass indexes for meteor showers and sporadic meteors;
- to determine individual meteor trajectories from observations of the same meteor by multiple stations (both shower meteors and sporadic ones);
- to determine orbital parameters of multi-station meteoroids;
- to analyze meteor profiles in order to retrieve physical parameters such as ionization, speed and mass of the meteoroids;
- to study head echoes and the so-called "epsilon" echoes;
- to promote radio-observation of meteors.
More:
- BRAMS (Belgian RAdio Meteor Stations) website
- Cluster of new BRAMS stations in Limburg (annual report 2019-2020)
- Radiation pattern of the BRAMS transmitter using a weather balloon (annual report 2019-2020)
- Meteoroid trajectory and speed determination using BRAMS data (annual report 2021-2022)
