The majority of radio studies of meteors have been carried out at frequencies higher than 17MHz and most of the rate observation at frequencies above 30MHz. At these frequencies a severe height selection of meteors occurs. In Figure 1(a) are shown the normalized height distributions of sporadic meteors observed at Adelaide on frequencies of 27MHz and 2MHz (Brown, 1976). The sharp cutoff of the latter distribution below 87 km is instrumental. The difference in the height distributions is due to the effect of the finite diameter of a meteor trail on its radar detectability. If the trail diameter is ≪ λ signals from the near and far edges reinforce but as the trail expands due to diffusion and the diameter becomes ≃ λ/4, interference reduces the amplitude. A meteor trail, produced by a particle with a velocity of 30 km s−1, has an initial diameter of 0.4m at 80 km, 2.0m at 104 km and 4.0m at 116 km.
Up in the air? The matter of radio studies
