[Lowfer] 160 - 175 KHz USE

[Zack Widup]

When I was in grad school at the University of Illinois in the late
70's someone was involved in an LF communication project. I wasn't
involved in it except I and a half dozen other grad students spent a
few days tromping around in muddy fields pulling several miles of
RG-8.
:-)

LF frequencies are used in communication systems in underground coal
mines. The mines and coal seams act as waveguides at certain
frequencies. The range used is generally 50 to 700 kHz. Fortunately
for us, the signals never leave the coal mines.

73, Zack W9SZ


On 6/28/11, JD <listread at lwca.org> wrote:
> ::: I hear that everyone avoided the low end because military was doing
> something there.  Is that still a problem?
>
> Nope.  GWEN reached the end of its useful (?) life in 1999.  It was
> more-or-less devised in the mid-80s*, reached its maximum nuisance value to
> LowFERs in the mid-90s, and mercifully did not survive beyond the end of the
> decade.  While groundwaves at LF may be relatively immune to long-term
> disruption from nuclear detonations, it was eventually realized that even
> comparatively hardened 299 foot towers radiating those waves would not fare
> so well.  Some of the sites have since been converted to DGPS facilities,
> while others have been dismantled entirely.
>
> Of course, with the Internet able to promulgate conspiracy sickness
> throughout the world almost as fast as shortwave radio can spread the
> delusions of false prophets, the spirit of GWEN has not gone away.  It
> lingers in the fevered brains of wackos the world over as somehow tied to
> HAARP, GPS, and even digital TV transmission as part of the government's
> enormous network of mass mind control.  But so far as actually hearing a
> peep out of them over the air, you won't.  Or at least, you _think_ you
> don't hear anything...maybe that's only because the mind control works so
> well. ;)
>
> (* Now, recall I said "more-or-less devised in the mid-80s."  That's when
> the contract was awarded for implementing the project in the form many of us
> remember.  However, some of us in broadcasting had been approached in the
> late 70s by the government to have our sites included in a network of
> automated military LF communication relays that sure sounded an awful lot
> like what became GWEN.  The sites they were apparently most interested in
> were surveyed and studied in some detail.  Nothing came of it at that time,
> however, and when the "real" program got underway in the next decade, the
> chosen sites were farther apart and not co-located with civilian
> facilities.)
>
> Civilian and civil users, though, have not entirely abandoned thoughts of LF
> for emergency communication.  I see on the Web that Niagara ARES even calls
> their exploratory program "Ground Wave Emergency Network."  And, look for
> word in the August LOWDOWN about how a major city is eyeing LF as a
> possibility for linking fire and rescue stations with each other after a
> major disaster.  But as of this time, the low end of 1750 meters has no
> military data traffic, and only the occasional Part 5-licensed activity.
> The European LW broadcast stations mostly have that region to themselves on
> cold winter nights.  :)
>
> John
>
>
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