During the recent peak activity of the Perseid meteor shower I used a YAESU FRG800 comms receiver tuned to 143.048MHz to monitor for meteors reflecting signals from the GRAVES radar station in France. Obviously this radio technique cannot definitively identify a detected meteor as a Perseid meteor or belonging to any other shower. Graph a) above presents the hourly totals of meteors detected by my system between 16.00 hours U.T. on 10^th August and 12.00 hours on 14^th August. The normal maximum of the Perseids across 12^th/13^th August is apparent. In his Perseids observing note posted on 4^th August John Mason referred to predictions of possible increased Perseid rates due to interactions with dust trails left behind by periodic comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. I couldn’t confidently discern any increases due to such interactions on 12^th August but there is clear evidence of the predicted interaction around 06.20 hours on 13^th August. There is a strong peak at 09.00 hours on 13^th August.

Graph b) shows the results of plotting the detected meteors in categories set by myself according to each detection’s signal strength, duration and appearance. ‘Simple’ meteor detections are the most common being low strength, short duration (<2secs) blips, shown as blue line on graph b). ‘Complex’ detections are very strong signals lasting at least several seconds and often complex in appearance (orange line). The graph of complex detections supports a short outburst from the predicted dust trail interaction on 13^th August as well as the normal Perseids maximum.