gmbertani

gmbertani is a niche Italian publisher whose single Windows utility, Echoes, turns inexpensive software-defined-radio dongles into scientific instruments for forward-scatter meteor detection. Built by an amateur-radio operator and physics enthusiast, the program listens to distant VHF beacon transmitters, records the brief signal enhancements produced when ionized meteor trails act as temporary reflectors, and automatically logs the resulting spectrograms, doppler shifts and event counts. Radio amateurs use it to monitor daily meteor rates, schools mount it on roof-mounted antennas for citizen-science projects, and professional astronomers deploy multiple synchronized stations to triangulate radiant points and stream live data during major showers. A lightweight interface displays real-time waterfall plots, exports CSV files for spreadsheet analysis, and can feed JSON packets to remote databases, while built-in scheduling lets the PC run unattended overnight and wake only when echoes exceed a user-defined SNR threshold. Because it relies on RTL-SDR or similar low-cost receivers, the entire setup costs less than a consumer webcam, yet produces research-grade time-stamped observations that complement optical meteor cameras. gmbertani’s Echoes software is available free of charge on get.nero.com, where the package is pulled directly from the official SourceForge release, delivered through the trusted winget channel, always updated to the newest build, and ready for unattended batch installation alongside other scientific or amateur-radio tools.