In this page I am planning to document the experiments with ground electrodes putting RF in the ground rather than an antenna. Using the earth as the medium for the radio waves propagation is not a new concept at all. While experimenting in the 136 kHz band, I came across the web pages of G3XBM and G0AKN (SK), hosted by Steve VK2XV. There is a lot of information about their recent experiments using earth dipoles, so I thought it may be a good idea to try to replicate some of their results. If you are interested in this type of radio system, it's also worth visiting the archive of "Speleonics" - the National Speleological Society Comms and Electronics section newsletter (thanks to Robert G3WKU for bringing my attention to that site).
The experiments are done in two places: my block of land near Murrumbateman, NSW is used as the trasnmitter site. It is located in QF44nx, about 30 km from my house. My house is in the Northern part of Canberra, in QF44mt. I am using my grabber to collect data on the performance of the transmitter. The transmitter is a version of the VK1SV MEPT, a very simple LF transmitter based on a crystal oscillator and a FET PA.
Below are links to the experiments done so far:
18/09/2011: the first experiment
10/10/2011: the second experiment
15/10/2011: the third experiment
02/11/2011: the forth experiment: we dare to compare!
06/11/2011: the fifth experiment
23/01/2013: the sixth experiment: 475 kHz!
07/09/2014: the seventh experiment: remeasuring impedance on 137/475
I don't understand it, but I like it!
-Dimitris Tsifakis, VK1SV