Month: March 2019

Record distance for a VLF transmission from an earth dipole antenna.

Recently we’ve done a successful  transmission from an earth dipole on 8270 Hz.

This is the first amateur transmission on VLF from Poland which has been received in another country. This is also the record distance for a transmission using a ground dipole antenna – over 1330 km.

Link to Paul Nicholson’s post about it: https://klubnl.pl/rsgb_lf_group-archives/html/rsgb_lf_group/2019-03/msg00025.html

Link to Paul’s VLF milestones list: http://abelian.org/vlf/amateur-radio/

This is probably the first VLF signal which has been transmitted from Poland after World War II. We are not aware of any military or other transmissions. Before the war we had the Babice Transatlantic Radiostation (callsigns AXO/AXL/SPO/SPL), which was similar to Grimeton/SAQ.

VLF transmit tests from a ground dipole

Encouraged by our last experiments with ground dipoles we decided to do a transmit experiment with this antenna on VLF 8.270kHz, 36km (36000m) wavelength. Thanks to  Fab LAB Trójmiasto we had a great location on the see on a cliff near the Baltic Sea in Gdynia. Our goals for this experiment were:

  • Try transmitting from a ground dipole on VLF
  • Assess the field strength near the sea
  • See if it is possible to reach greater distances with relatively simple equipment and low power.
  • Test a broadband transformer for VLF-LF-MF

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