[Milsurplus] Weird Reception Of VLF Transmissions

[Hue Miller]

> At 03:29 AM 12/10/2007, Roger Basford wrote:> > >I wonder if there are any other known examples of where VLF signals > >were recorded along with music?
Somewhat offtopic, but hey, this isn't the Third Reich here anyway.
 
About 5-6 years ago i was listening to a Sunday jazz program on the 
are NPR station. Jazz is a music i normally do not listen to a lot of, but
it does have the saving grace that for the most part, it is instrumental,
no message or story, lonesome cowboys, etc.  Anyway this program 
seemed to be experimental or avant-whatever jazz. They played a long
piece that had what sounded like mixed in sounds from the old 8 MHz
marine CW band - atmospherics, cheezey sounding bad tone CW notes,
teleprinter signals, appearing in a landscape of  honking saxophones, drums, 
everything. Seriously, i thought it was most excellently done, not frenetic
at all as you might think. And funny as hell.
 
Also on NPR but maybe 10-20 years ago i heard a program on some study
the Univeristy of Washington was doing on VLF propagation in the Arctic
region, i believe.  As i recall they used tremendously long wires layed out
on the ice. The program played some examples of whistlers, for example
there was a whistler sound called the "Dawn Chorus". Pretty spacey stuff
and neat sounding. I think the memory of how intriguing those sounds were,
is what makes me think from time to time of trying this but in the great 
outdoors, with the urban noise level forget trying it there. I noticed however
that the "whistler" VLF receivers sold in, i think, Monitoring Times for example,
use a simple wire "voltage probe" instead of any kind of magnetic antenna.
Also those whistlers apparently are an early-morniing phenomenon, which is
kind of disincentive for me.
 
When i built the "NAA Receiver" regen decades ago, i wound the coil with
too many turns and despite this, the receiver picked up NAA, NPM, NPG
etc  but at repeated  spots on the tuning dial, at harmonics apparently of the
actual oscillating frequency of the tuned circuit. The receiver also picked
up signals from my father's Hi-Fi when he played jazz records, but the
only instrument that made it into VLF-land were the brushes (drum brushes).
-Hue Miller
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