Hi Marcc,

I made a typo, I meant to write 2CA, but I have picked up 2CH on the same LW. I imagine you would also get 2CA as well?

Flukesoneseventyfive

Thanks for the explanation - not quite what I was imagining!

The following link, see Fig 2.1 on page 28 has a schematic of the sort of arrangement that I was talking about, in case you are curious.

http://search.ror.unisa.edu.au/media/researcharchive/open/9915960074101831/53112314230001831

One I missed that is not all that common but has happened twice is "tracking". The first one was a HV insulator that had been damaged by lightning the second, for which there was disbelief from the supplier also on the same HV line was a fuse holder that was noticed with the tell tale blue trail at certain times. That is normally a constant "hiss" if it is a continuous leak.

When the fuse holder was removed during a forced upgrade, there was the obvious track on the insulator.

There are AM transmitter kits around, but some are not particularly good. I could be cynical here and suggest it would not matter with Jazz as I don't consider modern Jazz music.

Photos uploaded to Post 28.

Although not high up off the ground, I expect you should be able to pull in a lot of stuff with that rig. What other bands have you tried?

I got my transmitter from the ol' mother country. It runs two valves and a handful of resistors and condensers. 1.5 volt A battery and 27 volt B battery. It's good but like most designs, deliberately throttled to make sure they cannot disrupt broadcasts, so in a general sense the transmitter works fine if its in the same room as the radios it serves.

Wow!! Bringbackthevalve.
I am impressed with the antenna farm and you have a great outlook around that part of the country.
How is the research going with VLF pre seismic studies.
and thanks for that info STC830, will have read through looks very interesting.

I have to agree, it's a great view.

What kind of animal is that in the first photo?

GTC,

The loop antennas are constructed for VLF natural noise detection, however, they work very well at MW and LW bands. They do roll off
sharply towards SW, as you would expect. Their greatest advantage is directivity, as loops are very good at rejecting signals arriving from the
side.

In terms of sensitivity, a good long-wire directed antenna outperforms them.

Looks like an Alpaca to me.

Flukeoneseventyfive,

The VLF detection equipment was essentially used to try and correlate natural noise anomalies with earthquakes. As such, it soon became
clear that the "good stuff" is hidden in the <3Hz area, i.e. ULF territory. In that respect the VLF loops are no longer used much, they are now
more or less a novelty, impressing visitors with their ability to pick-off thunderstorm activity across the equator, e.g. PNG, Indonesian Islands,
Malaysia etc.

The signals emitted from deep rocks under pressure are broadband, but the high frequency stuff is rapidly attenuated with distance.
It is the ULF that has the ability to travel hundreds and thousands of kilometres through earth, and that is what I search for.

The current detectors I use are buried below the surface. This gives me the added bonus of suppressing almost all man-made transient
spikes.

I could go on forever about this subject, and I'm always looking for collaborators, so perhaps I may post a more thorough description on
Special Projects if enough interest is shown.

Robbert,

Kakadumh is right, it's an Alpaca.

There are three wondering around the property. The one pictured is always curious about tools, equipment, cables etc. and is often sticking
his nose in the toolbox checking everything out. We call that one "The Engineer."

Flukeoneseventyfive

No trouble re info -copying a link is easy. I also have info from the Radiotron Designers Handbook and one other British source, though I wouldn't be able to scan those for several weeks.

Re VLF/ULF, I understand that submarines , especially those carrying strategic missiles communicate using these frequencies. Do these interfere with your earthquake studies?

STC830'

There have been odd signals which simply cannot be natural. (I think) But I doubt very much if they carry data (read modulated)

I shall post two graphs;

The first will be an earthquake precursor signal, the second graph------don't know, guessing man-made.

This graph depicts a typical pre-seismic signal.

Note two very important telltale signs;

a) Negative-going pulse, sometimes but not always followed by another pulse.

b) Rise/decay times are not rapid (fast rise/decays almost always suggest mains switching spikes, lightning, etc.)