The effects of nonzero-centroid and skewness of a fading spectrum are shown to influence the binary error probabilities of incoherent FSK and differentially coherent phase-reversal (DPSK) matched-filter receivers. It is also shown that for incoherent FSK, the skewness or nonzero centroid in the fading spectrum causes different error probabilities for binary signals, resulting in a binary asymmetric channel. The difference in error probabilities for binary signals can be used as a criterion for aligning the transmitter and receiver antennas coupled through a fading channel.

An estimate of the capacity of the meteor burst communication channel is given. The model takes into account both overdense and underdense trails as well as the effects of wind-induced trail warping.

Ray-tracing techniques are used to derive the impulse response at VHF of a meteor burst communications channel. An approach to analyze the effects of multipath arising from wind shear is also presented and is applied to a simplified model of trail distortion. Within the limitations of the models adopted, we have found that a single path with a spread of approximately 0.2 μs adequately describes the channel behavior within roughly half a second from trail formation, and that a multipath structure with several paths and a total multipath spread of approximately 2 μs is typically associated with the channel at later times, when the wind shear substantially affects the trail shape. These results are consistent with experimental findings according to which a meteor trail communications channel is capable of transmitting beyond-the-horizon bursts of television images of broadcast quality typically for a fraction of a second after trail formation.

Adaptive meteor scatter communication requires a data storage which can transmit or receive data at a continuously variable rate. Several systems, designed around head-per-track rotating memories and shift register arrays, are discussed.