BRAMS: Belgian RAdio Meteor Stations

BRAMS Newsfeed

Tests at the Humain station

The Humain station will eventually host an interferometric system with 5 antennas. Before everything is ready, we have used the two antennas there for the following test: computer simulations have revealed lately that the radiation pattern of a 3-element Yagi antenna inclined by some angle and located at some height above the ground can be strongly modified by the ground properties (whether it is conductive or not, hence dry or wet for example). This ground effect is strongly reduced if the antenna is directed vertical. The test currently done in Humain is to compare the number of meteor echoes we receive between an antenna pointing like the other BRAMS antenna (toward a point more or less located at 100 km altitude above the beacon, picture on the left) and an antenna pointing toward the zenith (picture on the right). After a few days of test, we will be able to answer this question quantitatively.

Happy New Year and Quadrantids 2013

The BRAMS team would like to wish everyone a happy & healthy 2013 as well as lots of success in meteor observations. This year we will try to update this website more regularly with recent advances in the BRAMS project. The year started well with a strong activity from the Quadrantids, as captured on the spectrogram below obtained at Uccle at 05:50 UT.

Presentations given during the IMC2012 in La Palma

During the International Meteor Conference 2012 held in La Palma, several members from the BRAMS team gave a talk. If you are interested, you can download on the presentations:

New BRAMS station in Leuze-Eghezée

A new BRAMS station has been set up in Leuze-Eghezée. Thanks to Jean-Pol Vandijck for taking care of the local installation. Below are some pictures of the station.

Meeting LORMS in Lille

On 26 June, there was a LORMS meeting at the Lille Observatory where I was invited to present the BRAMS project. Besides the local participants, Jean-Louis Rault and Jérémie Vaubaillon (from IMCCE) were also present. After a short presentation of the current radio meteor activities at the Observatory of Lille (listening to the Ieper beacon on 49.99 MHz), I presented BRAMS and encouraged the local participants to set up a BRAMS station with the same material as the one we used for our receiving stations. The discussions in the afternoon led to the conclusion that the Lille Observatory is very much willing to join the BRAMS network officially. Jean-Louis Rault also presented his REFORME project and Jérémie Vaubaillon discussed the FRIPON and PODET-MET projects. Thank you to Florent Deleflie and Jean-Claude Pesant for inviting me, welcoming me at the Observatory of Lille and I look forward to our collaboration within the BRAMS network in the next few months.

New BRAMS station at the Cosmodrome in Genk

We have set up a new BRAMS station at the Cosmodrome in Genk. Thanks to Seppe Canonaco for the help for the local installation.

Annual BRAMS meeting in MIRA

Each year we will organize a BRAMS meeting on a saturday. The meeting is open to all BRAMS users and we will discuss the recent developements and the forthcoming activities. This year we organized it at the MIRA observatory in Grimbergen. Thank you very much to MIRA and in particular to Philippe Mollet for welcoming us and providing us with their facilities. Below you can find the presentations that were given in the morning:

Page 11 of 16