meteor-burst communications

Technique for sending messages by bouncing radio waves off the trails of meteors. High-speed computer-controlled equipment is used to sense the presence of a meteor and to broadcast a signal during the short time that the meteor races across the sky.

The system, first suggested in the late 1920s, remained impracticable until data-compression techniques were developed, enabling messages to be sent in automatic high-speed bursts each time a meteor trail appeared. There are usually enough meteor trails in the sky at any time to permit continuous transmission of a message. The technique offers a communications link that is difficult to jam, is undisturbed by storms on the Sun, and would not be affected by nuclear war. The technology is in use by some amateur radio operators and by the US Department of Agriculture to collect data from remote automated weather stations.