Tis the season for Ground Radio

Well I had thought about it, I have planned it, and now I have finally got started in my experiments in ground radio.

Ground radio is simply like any other form of radio with the exception of the antenna system. In this method of receiving and in some cases transmitting signals, a ground rod is used as the antenna. For more information on the benefits and strange occurrences in the ground radio field please visit this link

Aside from some of the more corny aspects that the link has to offer I still have a lot of faith in what a ground radio system can provide.

 

The Setup

Below is a picture of my meager setup.

This is my ground radio electrode. It’s basically just a 5 foot copper pipe 3/4 inch in diameter. Every 6 inches I drilled a hole through the pipe. Once driven into the ground I charge the electrode by pouring brine solution into the pipe. The solution leeches out of the pipe into the surrounding soil. Once it looks like the liquid has leeched out completely I then pack the pipe with rock salt to keep it charged.

This is the radio receiver I hook up to the ground electrode. I believe this is a Rycom 6010 Selective Voltmeter. Basically it’s a voltmeter that monitors AC currents. The cool thing about this meter is that it is tunable with a tight 250hz filter and can monitor AM and BOTH sidebands.

If you look closely you’ll note that the meter portion of the unit is modified. I had to put my own meter into the unit since it came from EBay with a busted meter. I tap the wires going to the meter and use them to interface with a PC.

 

Next I take the wires coming from the meter tap and hook them up to a data logging voltmeter that is serially connected to my computer. If you look at the screen you’ll see the results of about 12 hours worth of monitoring.

 

The Experiment
The experiment at this stage consist mainly of monitoring a signal over a 24 hour period, logging the results on the PC and then having the data produce a graph that shows signal strength over time.

For this I needed a signal that is not only constantly on, but will also change overtime. A good candidate for this is a Navy Submarine Mega Transmitter in Cutler Maine. This transmitter is part of a network of very low frequency transmitters that broadcast a 50 baud signal to all the Trident Submarines all over the globe. As a side note I have come to find it a pointless venture to try and decrypt this 50 baud signal.

 

In addition to the transmitter broadcasting on the order of a million watts, the antenna system is also designed to penetrate through earth and water to get its signal to the sub.

Also because the signal is 24 KHz, its wavelength is roughly the distance from the ground to the ionized layer of atmosphere that is affected by the sun. So here we have a signal that can both travel through the Earth & water yet have its signal strength affected by the sun.

 

The Results
When I first hooked the receiver up to the ground electrode I was surprised at the intense signal strength and low noise ratio that the system produced. I was picking up things that I could NEVER pick up with an antenna above the ground. Furthermore, I did not have to have a tuning network setup to reject unwanted noise.

 

The first attempt to monitor a 24 hour period’s worth of data failed because the video card in my ancient PC gave out. After playing with the software a bit I managed to get it installed on my laptop and succeeded in my monitoring efforts.

 

Below is the graph I got from the monitoring I did two days ago.

Ok, the X-Axis is obviously time over a 24 hour period. The Y-Axis is the signal strength dictated by the meter in milli-volts.

 

If you look around 6:12 AM you’ll see that the sharp drop in the graph represents the sun rise. As the sun rises the solar radiation starts to hit the atmosphere and it begins to ionize. This ionized layer causes the signal strength to drop.

 

You can see after the sharp drop in signal strength that there is a small burp that occurs after this. This has always happened in all my monitoring and I’m not really sure WHY it happens.

 

Moving on you can see that between 10:30AM and Noon there are two sharp spikes in the graph. These are either small solar flare, or some sort of gamma ray burst. Two years ago when I did similar monitoring there were many events like this that lasts many times longer since we were at the peak in our solar cycle.

 

Finally around 5:40 PM we see the signal strength jump up again as the sun sets.

 

Lessons Learned
Well it’s hard to tell, since I have done this sort of thing before.

 

This experiment was basically set up to insure that my equipment is in working order.

 

And the results are, it worked perfectly for my needs to move on to other ground radio experiments.

Next I plan to use more then one ground electrode and to place a big coil and a tuning network in the system.