Meteor Burst Communications: Bits per Burst Performance Bounds

It is important for communications researchers and designers to understand the limitations of the media that they use. To enable a better understanding of meteor trails as a communications medium, classical received power equations were used to derive two performance bounds. These give the maximum number of bits that can be relayed during a single burst using 1)an optimum constant bit rate, and 2) a continuously varying bit rate. It was found that the second bound is about two to three times larger than the first. Examples are given to show how the maximum bits per burst varies as a function of great circle distance between terminals, wavelength, and trail electron line density, when the receiver uses an optimum constant bit rate. The first bound Was also used to estimate how the long-term bits per unit of time, or average bit rate, varies with changes in electron line density when the meteor burst rate is considered.