Describes elements of on-going research programmes being carried out by the Hull-Warwick Communications Research Group, aimed at obtaining greater reliability and throughput with meteorburst communication (MBC) systems. Essentially, this is achieved by adapting the effective instantaneous transmission rate in response to channel characteristics, rather than transmitting at a fixed rate, as with most previously deployed MBC systems. Embedded block coding and modulation techniques applicable to MBC systems are described, together with a combined embedded block coding and modulation technique. The results of the initial evaluation of such techniques over simulated and real MB channels are presented in terms of the system reliability and throughput