This paper examines the seasonal duty cycle variation of meteor and nonmeteor propagation at 45 MHz on two-latitude links. Software techniques for automatic data processing and analysis of the data are discussed. It is shown that for large portions of the year nonmeteoric propagation, most likely sporadic E, is the dominant propagation mechanism. Consequently, protocols for an operational meteor scatter communication network must be designed to cope with a situation in which close to an entire network may be connected for long periods of time. System duty cycles at 45 MHz in excess of 20% are common during the summer months in the high-latitude region. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1993