Want a Twenty Second Pulse? -just Turn Up The Heat!

People have been wondering where twenty second pulses on VLF radio come from. Well one day I was bored one night in early 2009 and stared at a scrolling waterfall spectrogram. I saw a few of them, then I made the connection. Every time my Burnham Oil Burner switches on, I see one. I confirmed this by using a software radio (Winrad under Wine) and the speakers on high volume, tuned to 17 kHz. I finally got up the nerve to post this video when I found out that my scanner antenna ($20 Radio Shack Rubber Duck antenna) will pick it up using only the amplification on the sound card. In this video I wait for a few minutes, then I CHEAT by turning up the heat. It still takes almost as long as mounting a Sony PSP under Linux (geologically large amounts of time). Go to 6:40 to see it come up.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• heat
• thermostat
• twenty
• second
• pulse
• oil
• burner
• VLF
• radio
• 17
• kHz
• spark
• gap

[Amishman35]

In the microphone port, but instead of connecting a microphone or headphones, you connect an antenna. Radio Shack sells an adapter that can convert a BNC jack to a phono RCA plug as well as an adapter for RCA to mic jack adapter. On the BNC jack I connected the $20 Deluxe Scanner Antenna. You will only get twenty second pulses if you or a close neighbour has an oil-fired heating system.

[rzsigray1]

cool vid...what part of the soundcard do i plug something in...use the mic port or an old pair of headphones?