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Building up nicely with 320 hits this week alone.


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The peak of the Perseid meteor shower is nearly upon us.

Had 320 detected meteor hits in the past seven days.

Some very interesting large hits this week including several multiple hits.

 

 

 

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I still have data going back to my 1st obs in 1982. The weather tho these last few years and decades just make it rare to actually see one. So this is great graham!

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Good stuff Graham .....

 

I finally managed to get my detector up and running yesterday and it's counting meteors.

I thought my Funcube Pro+ dongle was damaged but thankfully it turned out to be the adapter between the antenna cable and the dongle sma connector. So a quick and cheap fix!

 

My original script kept returning some errors, so I'm going to have to look closer at that to see what's different but I've got an earlier one that I modified a little and that's running fine for now.

But I still have some tweaking to do before I'm happy.

 

I've got the RMOB data being recorded and showing up in Colorlab and I'll start uploading that to the RMOB site once I've done all the tweaking and got the noise threashold adjusted.

OmfVtSQ.jpg?1

 

 

 

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I need someone to go through the RMOB bit with me as I do not understand how to get the data from Spectrum Lab into the files needed to upload them to RMOB.

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7 minutes ago, Graham said:

I need someone to go through the RMOB bit with me as I do not understand how to get the data from Spectrum Lab into the files needed to upload them to RMOB.

Graham,

Does the Conditional Actions script you're using create the RMOB files? - there will be a mention of RMOB somewhere toward the bottom part of the script.

If it does then you should find the RMOB .dat files somewhere (depending on the logs path in the script) and it's just a matter of getting them into Colorgramme.

 

Al

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Al.Grant said:

Graham,

Does the Conditional Actions script you're using create the RMOB files? - there will be a mention of RMOB somewhere toward the bottom part of the script.

If it does then you should find the RMOB .dat files somewhere (depending on the logs path in the script) and it's just a matter of getting them into Colorgramme.

 

Al

 

 

 

If I had any idea what you just said  I could give you an answer ?

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This is a screen shot of my conditional actions .

 

Click on it a couple of times to get to full size.

 

spacer.png

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13 hours ago, Graham said:

This is a screen shot of my conditional actions .

Hi Graham,

That is one of the scripts that doesn't auto generate the RMOB data.  Apparently you can do it manually each day, but I have no idea how!

You 'll probably need to try a different Conditional Actions script. 

Scripts that will do it for you usually have something towards the end of the script that looks similar to:

open3("RMOB-"+str("YYYYMM",now)+".dat",a

 

I'm going to be away in Snowdonia for a few days from tonight and phone/internet will be a bit hit and miss, and I'll be away from my laptop so working from memory, so I'll put most of the info in this post now in case you need it - consequently it actually looks more involved than it actually is!

Happy to try answer any ???

 

If you do I strongly suggest saving your current settings so you can quickly and easily revert back to your current settings.

Any new script may change the view you use in Spectrum lab and alter how you create your youtube videos!

I suggest doing it anyway just in case anything goes wrong in the furture.

 

You probably already know ....but to save them in Spectrum Lab

Menu  File > Save Settings As..  >  Save as type *.usr - give it a name and save.

This way you can go back to your current settings/Conditional Actions just by loading the .usr file.

 

If you look in the Conditional Actions directory you might find a script called  meteor_test_1.txt this has the commands needed for RMOB generation.

I've never tried this one so can't comment on how good it is or isn't!

 

Many of the meteor detection scripts out there are based on one by Simon Dawes and have been used for a good few years.

A good one to start with is MeteorLogger_SD_2012-06-09_corrected.TXT

I've put a dropbox link here:    https://www.dropbox.com/s/av1j7hong3ulsb8/0_MeteorLogger_SD_2012-06-09_corrected.TXT?dl=0

 

Again - back up your current config before loading this.

 

If you open that script in something like Notepad++  you'll see 

 

Line 5    if( (initialising) ) then THRESHOLD=20:LOW=1740:HIGH=2600 

>> you can adjust the THRESHOLD number to suit the noise levels.  Mine is on around 17.

 

Line 7    if( (initialising) ) then DIR="c:\\spectrum\\meteorlog\\":M_NAM="Meteor" 

>> You'll need to ensure the path is correct (c drive etc) and ayou NEED to create a meteorlog sub dir in specturm. This is where your RMOB files will be created.   

I missed this when I first used these scripts and spent hours banging my head off the wall ?

Images of your meteor hits will also be created and stored in this directory.

 

Line 25  if( (timer4.expired(1)) ) then RUN=ON:sp.print("Let's find some Meteors! By Simon Dawes Version:"+VERSION):NOI=noise(LOW,HIGH):   

>> This will print a message on the main screen when the script starts - good 'confidence check' - you can change the text in the "  " to suit.

 

Line 50  contains info needed to generate the RMOB .dat files, these will be located in the spectrum\meteorlog directory. NO need to modify anything here.

 

 

Colorgramme Lab:

 

You'll need to download and install the colorlab software (free)  http://radio.meteor.free.fr/fr/en/logiciels.html

This displays and uploads the RMOB data - it's easy enough to configure but the menu system isn't obvious and causes people headaches.

 

First you need to fill in the 'Observer' page. Fill in ALL the boxes!  If you don't have a pre-amp then type none in the box.  The software doesn't like blank boxes!

 

To open your RMOB data file:

Ignore the menu option that says 'Open RMOB File' - this throws many people off!

Instead go:

Menu   Live > Spectrum Lab > (navigate to your meteorlog dir) > select the RMOB-2019xx.dat file > Open 


There won't be much in there if the script has only just started, just give it a couple of hours until you know you've got some hits.

(your Spectrum Lab screen should now have a button on the left hand side that shows the meteor/hr count.)

 

The 'Colorgramme' tab shows a colour coded display of your received meteors - updated each hour.

The 'RMOB Data' tab will show the same data in a numerical format. Date down the side & time along the top.

The 'Internet FTP Transfer' tab will allow you to upload to the RMOB site - this can be a bit hit and miss and I had to contact them last time before it started working.

Even if you decide not to upload it will generate images like:

Hj9aS0A.jpg

 

Leave colorgramme running minimised.

 

Hope some of this helps ....

 

Al

 

 

 

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Well I won't be doing that again in a hurry ?

It did not work and it has taken me most of the day to get back to where I was first thing. ?

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Graham,

Sorry to hear it didn't go well and you had problems.

Before I left for Wales I moved my detector over to the same script and it loaded and was running without any issues.

I can't check how it is at the moment as I'm sat on a remote campsite in Wales and I can't access the laptop.

 

 

Al

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I seem to remember something about running 2 instances of Spec Lab at the same time with different configurations.

I might give that a try later in the week when I get home. I'll let you know if it works.

 

Al

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