Hi folks,

Greetings from the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia.

I hope that this subject is not too far off topic....

For years I have been interested in "ground conduction" communications.

Occasionally I had played with amplifiers and morse code, but when PSK31 arrived, I knew that it was just perfect for ground conduction coms.....

Lately I have hooked up an "earth dipole" which consists of two 100 Mtr runs of wire with earth stakes at each end. I have been having much fun listening to Whisters and Tweeks etc (as well as lots of mains hum !).

Today I hooked up my PC to an audio amp and a suitable transformer and fed PSK31 into my earth dipole.

I left PSK31 sending a large text file and went for a drive up to the local park about 1 km away and put two earth stakes in (at 100 m apart) and hooked up my laptop PC using the microphone input.

Viola!. Perfect copy !!!!!! Really strong signals too...

There was strong QRN from a nearby electric fence, as well as overload from Omega, but considering all that, it worked amazingly well....

One interesting thing is that 1000Hz is completely clear. I thought that it would have had a 50hz harmonic on it, but not so, it seems..... of course, PSF31 can tune to find a clearer spot if necessary...

I was running QRP, perhaps 10W or so. It would be intersesting to put the full output of my generator into the ground, via a rectifier and a H bridge and harmonic filter.

I have been collecting info on earth conduction for many years, so if anyone is interested in this facinating subject, please write direct to me at gzimmer@bigpond.com

73's .................. Zim (Graeme Zimmer) ................... VK3GJZ