The world's largest "radio" station (2005) [pdf]

https://pages.hep.wisc.edu/~prepost/ELF.pdf

by ritabratamaiti • 3 years ago

82 20 3 years ago

pages.hep.wisc.edu

ReactiveJelly• 3 years ago

See also the Wikipedia article on the concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency

News-Dog• 3 years ago

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Ha...

VLF : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_frequency

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt (North West Cape) : https://nautilus.org/publications/books/australian-forces-ab...

Defence Minister Peter Dutton says a Chinese spy ship has been seen near secretive naval facility off Western Australia

Posted; 13 May 2022 : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-13/chinese-spy-ship-spot...

Note! Some edits to add additional information.

I was looking for the Photo of the transmitter tank coil (approx 4 or 5 stories high) of the long gone facility.

jakedata• 3 years ago

While I was passingly familiar with the system previously, this came as a bit of a surprise: "...faculty and researchers at the Michigan Technological University (MTU) School of Forestry and Wood Products have found that the Project ELF’s antenna grid makes the trees grow faster."

wyldfire• 3 years ago

That's interesting that it might have an impact on plant life. What about animal? Whenever I hear about ULF/ELF, my mind immediately drifts to the Bryan Cranston "X-Files" episode "Drive" [1]:

Mulder realizes that Crump is suffering from a painful sensation of pressure building in his head and that the only way to alleviate this pressure is to drive west. ... [Scully] then discovers a U.S. Navy antenna array emitting ELF waves stretches beneath their property. Scully deduces that an abnormal surge in these waves somehow caused a rising pressure in the inner ear of the nearby inhabitants. Westward motion and an increase in speed seem to be the only thing to help ease the pain of the increasing pressure

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_(The_X-Files)

ritabratamaiti• 3 years ago

That's interesting, did they give the mechanism for how the antenna grid accelerated vegetation growth or was the conclusion obtained through statistical analysis?

progre• 3 years ago

See also: https://grimeton.org/en/

An old military guy told me that Grimeton station was unofficially used to send messages to submerged subs well into the 1980:ies

2b3a51• 3 years ago

Have a look at

https://alexander.n.se/

as well. That Web site is for the association who organise transmissions from SAQ a few times a year. This year's summer event is on Sunday is July 2nd.

Named after Ernst Alexanderson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Alexanderson

The station was built to include Sweden in the RCA transatlantic communication system. I suspect it was a bit redundant by the time it got built as they worked out that short waves worked better than long waves for wireless propagation.

ianpenney• 3 years ago

There are some Amateurs who’ve used the 2200m and 630m wavelength bands. Mostly using Morse Code, FT8 and WSPR modes as they are narrow bandwidth weak signal modes.

https://youtu.be/FuugH6jn9rc

https://www.qrz.com/db/?callsign=dl4eai

In fact some of them appear to be transmitting FT8 even today.

https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html?preset&callsign=ZZZZZ&w...

sebcat• 3 years ago

2200 meter is LF (30-300kHz). Used mainly with huge coils and low power (1W EIRP). then there's VLF (3-30kHz). Then there's ULF (300Hz-3kHz) Then there's ELF (below 300 Hz), used by the stations in question. To put things into perspective.

Speaking of VLF, SAQ will broadcast on 17.2 kHz on July 2nd. You can pick it up with a soundcard directly (not using a DVB-T chip) depending on your location and use of antenna.

dang2• 3 years ago

Anybody have a year for this?

philipkglass• 3 years ago

I believe that it's 1999. The latest year directly referenced in it is 1998.

The last page says "On the other hand, faculty and researchers at the Michigan Technological University (MTU) School of Forestry and Wood Products have found that the Project ELF’s antenna grid makes the trees grow faster. MTU foresters have been studying the effects ever since the system became operational ten years ago."

1989 is when the Project ELF system started operating, so "ten years ago" indicates 1999 for the document.

MandieD• 3 years ago

The PDF itself was created in 2005 and the file date in the parent directory the same date as the PDF, so that's the absolute latest date, but I'd also guess 1999 for the original paper. Not sticking a date on it without a bit more certainty, though.

posnet• 3 years ago

Also of interest are the Nightwatch planes for use as mobile command posts in the event of a nuclear strike. They are able to trail a 5 mile long cable to act as a massive transmitter to also contact submerged ballistic missile submarines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4#Lower_lobe

danbruc• 3 years ago

Also the Emergency Rocket Communication System [1], ICBMs with 1 kW UHF transmitters instead of warheads to broadcast prerecorded messages of up to 90 seconds in case other means of communication became unavailable. This one would however not reach submerged submarines.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/DRC-8_Emergency_Rocket_Comm...

walrus01• 3 years ago

The ultimate low tech fallback from the UK, noone knows exactly what they say but there's lots of educated theories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort

Maybe "if you definitively learn that the Russians nuked London and WA DC, nuke the Russians"

One also must wonder what the submarine commanders thought of receiving new letters from the new Prime Minister after only 44 day of Liz Truss. If she even had time to write the letters and give them to the MOD.

teh_klev• 3 years ago

The Tupolev Tu-142 Bear J (a variant of the TU-95) also has this capability:

https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/tu-95-varian...

The BBC like to get all excited about these aircraft when they do a fly past in international airspace:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-she...

jdougan• 3 years ago

The Soviet/Russian Perimeter (aka Dead Hand) second-strike system uses rockets with transmitters flying cross-country to alert the Russian missile fields in case of a decapitation strike.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

hatsunearu• 3 years ago

You can actually receive those 3-30kHz signals (which are still being broadcast around the globe today) with a garden variety soundcard, as long as you have a suitable antenna (which actually isn't that hard to build, since you don't need a particularly efficient antenna to receive signals). Helps that you can get sound cards with ridiculously high SNRs (compared to say, regular radio receivers) for dirt cheap.

weinzierl• 3 years ago

This is an interesting, but older document dealing with stations going down to a couple of Hertz. The lower the frequency, the larger the antenna and therefore the station needs to be.

Currently probably the HAARP station[1] in Alaska would qualify as the largest radio station. It goes down into the 0.1 Hz range. From my limited understanding it is only possible to do so, because it basically utilizes the athmosphere itself as antenna.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Aurora...

The world's largest "radio" station (2005) [pdf]

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