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Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2019 23:40:14 +0100
From: DK7FC <selberdenken@posteo.de>
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Subject: Re: VLF: in VK?
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Dimitris,

Am 05.02.2019 21:14, schrieb Dimitrios Tsifakis:
> G'day Stefan and Edgar,
>
> My house is on QF44OX00OR and the property extends to QF44NX (50 acres
> or 200,000 m^2). I do have permission from some neighbours to lay
> wires into their properties, so an extra large (over 1km) ground wire
> is entirely doable but not at this point in time.
Wow, i'm envious and happy that you have such possibilities!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not at this time, ok. I would suggest to start in small steps anyway, 
then you can be happy about many improvements, not just a single big one 
:-)
I often imagine to live in Canada or Australia and do such experiments 
exactly!
> The reference loop
> is from the shed, about 100 metres south of the house, to the tractor
> shed.
100m is very close, the far field begins at about 5.7 km distance at 
8.27 kHz. A RX in that distance is only useful to check and observe the 
signal stability and compare levels. A feedback monitor like my tree 
which is 3.5 km distant from my INV-L antenna in the city. From my 
ground loop antenna in JN39WI it is 57.6 km distant, which is already an 
interesting distance and can be challenging below 3 kHz.

>   I have mains in the shed and I also have a 200 W audio linear
> amplifier to get things started.
Excellent, just excellent! Your signal could be the stongest of the 
radio amateurs! 200W is just fine for the first steps. But be careful 
with those audio amplifiers, they do not seem to like to much reactive 
power.
For tuning the antenna you will only need a capacitor in series. For my 
portable VLF system i built a current transformer to produce a small 
voltage that goes to the soundcard. Then, using SpecLab, i can calculate 
the antenna current directly and even keep the phase of the current 
stable, even if there should be a soundcard glitch. For the signal 
generation i also use SpecLab and a cheap GPS module. It all works very 
reliable, there were no problems so far.
With a house at one of the ends of the antenna you are in a very 
comfortable situation! You may already have a ground system there, so 
the effort is at one end only.

>   I can build a class-E kilowatt if
> necessary later. I like the roughly north-south loop configuration as
> it favours many large cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Tassie)
> and most importantly Canberra which is only 30 km to the South. I will
> try to get some signals received in Canberra before I start asking
> people further away to have a listen.
Yes, this is a very good distance to observe your own signal. If you 
have internet access there and can leave a small PC/notebook/tablet ... 
then you could build up a webpage and run a grabber from there like i do 
from my tree (still under maintenance). That would be ideal and it just 
feels good to see the own signal very clearly on a real RX in a short 
distance. You are then independent.


>   I currently have assembled an XO
> clocked DDS controlled by an arduino to do the initial tests but later
> when I decide to go QRSSSSSI can dig out and use the old rubidium
> clock as a reference for extra stability. For receiving I use a 24
> bit, 192 kHz USB sound card and spectrum lab (thanks Wolf!). The
> antenna I will use for receive is one of those monster ferrite rods.
> Amplification may not even be necessary, the signals I get when the
> antenna is tuned seem to be already quite good. Once I have a decent
> RX antenna I think I will start gifting these rods (I have a few) to
> interested amateurs in the region and help them get started with
> receiving on VLF. Make a small army of receivers, that would make life
> much easier when evaluating antennas!
>    
Oh yes! Fortunately there are a few arround here. These days this is 
(sorted by distance to my VLF loop): DK7FC, DF6NM, DL0AO, DL4YHF, 
IK1QFK, Paul Nicholson, SQ5BPF and RN3AUS. Oh and W1VD, K3SIW and Edgar 
J.T. This is about the complete VLF group worldwide, at least those who 
prooved to detect narrow band (sub mHz) signals close to the limits, in 
the last 3 years until now.

> Hey, you should document your experiments even if it is a summary of
> the activities and nothing more. The list is great but perhaps we are
> missing out on many other potentially interested people that may have
> not discovered the list.
Yes, you are right. I had the same thought sometimes. Certainly there 
are many amateurs who would feel like having a new life when starting at 
VLF, It is an unknown spectrum for 99.9 % of the amateurs. Actually it 
is not even amateur radio because it is not a spectrum allocated to 
amateur radio. So everyone could operate there.
But there is a risk, you know. There are those people who do not simply 
start to transmit/receive there and feel good. There are those who 
prefer to ask if this is legal at all. And then they ask here and there, 
as long as they find someone who triggers their fears and phobs, and 
then they do nothing at all! Beware of such people, they are 
contaminating your free mind. Concentrate on ideas and wishes, like for 
example detecting your own signal in Canberra. And then the question 
"Will this also work on lower frequencies", for example.
When writing an article in a radio magazine, what will be the result? 
Will it actually lead to more _active_ people on the band, who transmit 
and/or receive_ for a longer time, say at least 5 to 10 years_? Or will 
it rise a short interest only, dominated by people telling it is not 
legal and so on... I'm not sure about that. It could be even better to 
stay in a smaller group who can do what it wants instead causing a 
decision / regulation by an 'authority'.

>   You are clearly not lazy having achieved so
> much on MF and below :-)
>    
Thanks but i'm lazy into a certain spectrum. On the other side, there 
are people who write many articles over the years but it is simply 
impossible for them to even imagine to wind a coil which has more than 
100 turns. Maybe it is good that there is a variety of people, the 
article writers and the coil winders and something inbetween :-) Oh, and 
the programmers! Very important. Without Wolfgang and Paul and Markus we 
would do nothing at all!
Oh BTW maybe i'll transmit on my loop again the next weekend. I can't 
await it, it is more than 2 weeks ago, a very long time!!

> I have played with ground loops before and had some good results in
> LF.
On VLF it should work much better (relative to a vertical E field 
antenna). The idea is that the current runs back in a deep layer (skin 
depth), depending on the ground conductivity. So it should work better 
on poor conducting ground.
>   Once I establish a reference system, I can compare antennas
> including ground loops. Unlike Europe where you have plenty of people
> around you, I have to do both the TXing and the RXing and that
> requires effort and time. The latter is a very scarce resource!
>
> Anyway, looks like a nice day today to do some more outdoor work. We
> had lightning storms and plenty of rain the past few days, so I
> haven't made any progress.
>    
RR, good luck and fun with the new challenges.
Looking forward to your next steps and reports.

73, Stefan


> 73, Dimitris VK2COW
>

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Dimitris, <br>
<br>
Am 05.02.2019 21:14, schrieb Dimitrios Tsifakis:
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap="">G'day Stefan and Edgar,

My house is on QF44OX00OR and the property extends to QF44NX (50 acres
or 200,000 m^2). I do have permission from some neighbours to lay
wires into their properties, so an extra large (over 1km) ground wire
is entirely doable but not at this point in time. </pre>
</blockquote>
Wow, i'm envious and happy that you have such
possibilities!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<br>
Not at this time, ok. I would suggest to start in small steps anyway,
then you can be happy about many improvements, not just a single big
one :-) <br>
I often imagine to live in Canada or Australia and do such experiments
exactly!<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap="">The reference loop
is from the shed, about 100 metres south of the house, to the tractor
shed.</pre>
</blockquote>
100m is very close, the far field begins at about 5.7 km distance at
8.27 kHz. A RX in that distance is only useful to check and observe the
signal stability and compare levels. A feedback monitor like my tree
which is 3.5 km distant from my INV-L antenna in the city. From my
ground loop antenna in JN39WI it is 57.6 km distant, which is already
an interesting distance and can be challenging below 3 kHz.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap=""> I have mains in the shed and I also have a 200 W audio linear
amplifier to get things started.</pre>
</blockquote>
Excellent, just excellent! Your signal could be the stongest of the
radio amateurs! 200W is just fine for the first steps. But be careful
with those audio amplifiers, they do not seem to like to much reactive
power.<br>
For tuning the antenna you will only need a capacitor in series. For my
portable VLF system i built a current transformer to produce a small
voltage that goes to the soundcard. Then, using SpecLab, i can
calculate the antenna current directly and even keep the phase of the
current stable, even if there should be a soundcard glitch. For the
signal generation i also use SpecLab and a cheap GPS module. It all
works very reliable, there were no problems so far.<br>
With a house at one of the ends of the antenna you are in a very
comfortable situation! You may already have a ground system there, so
the effort is at one end only.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap=""> I can build a class-E kilowatt if
necessary later. I like the roughly north-south loop configuration as
it favours many large cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Tassie)
and most importantly Canberra which is only 30 km to the South. I will
try to get some signals received in Canberra before I start asking
people further away to have a listen.</pre>
</blockquote>
Yes, this is a very good distance to observe your own signal. If you
have internet access there and can leave a small PC/notebook/tablet ...
then you could build up a webpage and run a grabber from there like i
do from my tree (still under maintenance). That would be ideal and it
just feels good to see the own signal very clearly on a real RX in a
short distance. You are then independent.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap=""> I currently have assembled an XO
clocked DDS controlled by an arduino to do the initial tests but later
when I decide to go QRSSSSSI can dig out and use the old rubidium
clock as a reference for extra stability. For receiving I use a 24
bit, 192 kHz USB sound card and spectrum lab (thanks Wolf!). The
antenna I will use for receive is one of those monster ferrite rods.
Amplification may not even be necessary, the signals I get when the
antenna is tuned seem to be already quite good. Once I have a decent
RX antenna I think I will start gifting these rods (I have a few) to
interested amateurs in the region and help them get started with
receiving on VLF. Make a small army of receivers, that would make life
much easier when evaluating antennas!
  </pre>
</blockquote>
Oh yes! Fortunately there are a few arround here. These days this is
(sorted by distance to my VLF loop): DK7FC, DF6NM, DL0AO, DL4YHF,
IK1QFK, Paul Nicholson, SQ5BPF and RN3AUS. Oh and W1VD, K3SIW and Edgar
J.T. This is about the complete VLF group worldwide, at least those who
prooved to detect narrow band (sub mHz) signals close to the limits, in
the last 3 years until now.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap="">Hey, you should document your experiments even if it is a summary of
the activities and nothing more. The list is great but perhaps we are
missing out on many other potentially interested people that may have
not discovered the list.</pre>
</blockquote>
Yes, you are right. I had the same thought sometimes. Certainly there
are many amateurs who would feel like having a new life when starting
at VLF, It is an unknown spectrum for 99.9 % of the amateurs. Actually
it is not even amateur radio because it is not a spectrum allocated to
amateur radio. So everyone could operate there.<br>
But there is a risk, you know. There are those people who do not simply
start to transmit/receive there and feel good. There are those who
prefer to ask if this is legal at all. And then they ask here and
there, as long as they find someone who triggers their fears and phobs,
and then they do nothing at all! Beware of such people, they are
contaminating your free mind. Concentrate on ideas and wishes, like for
example detecting your own signal in Canberra. And then the question
"Will this also work on lower frequencies", for example.<br>
When writing an article in a radio magazine, what will be the result?
Will it actually lead to more <u>active</u> people on the band, who
transmit and/or receive<u> for a longer time, say at least 5 to 10 years</u>?
Or will it rise a short interest only, dominated by people telling it
is not legal and so on... I'm not sure about that. It could be even
better to stay in a smaller group who can do what it wants instead
causing a decision / regulation by an 'authority'.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap=""> You are clearly not lazy having achieved so
much on MF and below :-)
  </pre>
</blockquote>
Thanks but i'm lazy into a certain spectrum. On the other side, there
are people who write many articles over the years but it is simply
impossible for them to even imagine to wind a coil which has more than
100 turns. Maybe it is good that there is a variety of people, the
article writers and the coil winders and something inbetween :-) Oh,
and the programmers! Very important. Without Wolfgang and Paul and
Markus we would do nothing at all!<br>
Oh BTW maybe i'll transmit on my loop again the next weekend. I can't
await it, it is more than 2 weeks ago, a very long time!!<br>
<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap="">I have played with ground loops before and had some good results in
LF.</pre>
</blockquote>
On VLF it should work much better (relative to a vertical E field
antenna). The idea is that the current runs back in a deep layer (skin
depth), depending on the ground conductivity. So it should work better
on poor conducting ground.<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap=""> Once I establish a reference system, I can compare antennas
including ground loops. Unlike Europe where you have plenty of people
around you, I have to do both the TXing and the RXing and that
requires effort and time. The latter is a very scarce resource!

Anyway, looks like a nice day today to do some more outdoor work. We
had lightning storms and plenty of rain the past few days, so I
haven't made any progress.
  </pre>
</blockquote>
RR, good luck and fun with the new challenges. <br>
Looking forward to your next steps and reports.<br>
<br>
73, Stefan<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
 cite="mid:CAKvcm2eruQgEambPR+5HBsg6ckjd3ZOFNf5hV7NfTCLuFOy-=g@mail.gmail.com"
 type="cite">
  <pre wrap="">
73, Dimitris VK2COW</pre>
  <br>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>

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