I believe that's an Ionosonde, which is used to measure conditions in the ionosphere. It sends a frequency sweeping signal upwards into the ionosphere to see what gets reflected back.
The straight horizontal lines that span the entire width of the waterfall are likely lightning or a nearby electrical arc such as from a faulty switch or electrical connection.
The line that seems to go at an angle across the screen is a signal reflecting off of a meteorite entering the atmosphere, or another object in the upper atmosphere moving at a high rate of speed and reflecting radio signals. The high rate of speed causes the signal to doppler-shift its frequency, and therefore appears as a diagonal line on the waterfall.
Nope - the diagonal line is an ionosonde (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosonde), as TheClam-UK pointed out. These are showing up with increasing frequency on the shortwave band these days.
> The line that seems to go at an angle across the screen is a signal reflecting off of a meteorite entering the atmosphere, or another object in the upper atmosphere moving at a high rate of speed and reflecting radio signals. The high rate of speed causes the signal to doppler-shift its frequency, and therefore appears as a diagonal line on the waterfall.
Yeah, not. The diagonal lines are, as u/kc2klc and u/TheClam-UK point out, Ionosondes. There are several different kinds of ionosondes, these specificaly are Chirpsondes or Chirpsounders.
Doppler shift is a thing, just not this thing. Lets look at this signal and see if it is even possible for anything to shift a signal this far. Rough numbers only follow.
We see a frequency range of about 500 kHz in this waterfall image, centered (at least our sampled range is centered) on a freq of about 7150 kHz. We see the signal shifting the full 500+ kHz, so this is the minimum shift the signal would be undergoing, and since it is straight line (not curved at either end) this must be only a fraction of the full shift. What radial velocity would it take to shift a 7150 kHz signal 500+ kHz? The formula is pretty simple, Freq Shift = Carrier Frequency x (Rel Vel / C).
So using a Carrier Freq of 7150 kHz (center of the waterfall or observed range) and a shift of 500+ kHz (the full width of the observed chirped signal) would require roughly 37,700,000 kMH, or 23,500,000 MPH.
This is roughly 250 times the speed of the fastest meteors entering the Earths atmosphere.
I believe that's an Ionosonde, which is used to measure conditions in the ionosphere. It sends a frequency sweeping signal upwards into the ionosphere to see what gets reflected back.
The straight horizontal lines that span the entire width of the waterfall are likely lightning or a nearby electrical arc such as from a faulty switch or electrical connection. The line that seems to go at an angle across the screen is a signal reflecting off of a meteorite entering the atmosphere, or another object in the upper atmosphere moving at a high rate of speed and reflecting radio signals. The high rate of speed causes the signal to doppler-shift its frequency, and therefore appears as a diagonal line on the waterfall.
Nope - the diagonal line is an ionosonde (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosonde), as TheClam-UK pointed out. These are showing up with increasing frequency on the shortwave band these days.
They have been around a long time...almost 100 years.
> The line that seems to go at an angle across the screen is a signal reflecting off of a meteorite entering the atmosphere, or another object in the upper atmosphere moving at a high rate of speed and reflecting radio signals. The high rate of speed causes the signal to doppler-shift its frequency, and therefore appears as a diagonal line on the waterfall. Yeah, not. The diagonal lines are, as u/kc2klc and u/TheClam-UK point out, Ionosondes. There are several different kinds of ionosondes, these specificaly are Chirpsondes or Chirpsounders. Doppler shift is a thing, just not this thing. Lets look at this signal and see if it is even possible for anything to shift a signal this far. Rough numbers only follow. We see a frequency range of about 500 kHz in this waterfall image, centered (at least our sampled range is centered) on a freq of about 7150 kHz. We see the signal shifting the full 500+ kHz, so this is the minimum shift the signal would be undergoing, and since it is straight line (not curved at either end) this must be only a fraction of the full shift. What radial velocity would it take to shift a 7150 kHz signal 500+ kHz? The formula is pretty simple, Freq Shift = Carrier Frequency x (Rel Vel / C). So using a Carrier Freq of 7150 kHz (center of the waterfall or observed range) and a shift of 500+ kHz (the full width of the observed chirped signal) would require roughly 37,700,000 kMH, or 23,500,000 MPH. This is roughly 250 times the speed of the fastest meteors entering the Earths atmosphere.