[time-nuts] Loran, GPS, Lightning, Timing

Bob Stewart bob at evoria.net
Fri Jun 27 16:28:37 UTC 2014


You might be thinking of the file that David Byrne sent  to the HP list last year on 9/7/13.  It was an article by C. L. Stong and I think it was published in The Amateur Scientist in 1963.  You should be able to find it in the HP list archives.


Bob



________________________________
 From: Max Robinson <max at maxsmusicplace.com>
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement <time-nuts at febo.com> 
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Loran, GPS, Lightning, Timing
 

I think the QST article being referred to in this thread is one that I 
remember rather clearly.  I kept the issue for a long time but it got away 
from me somewhere along the line.  It was a lightening direction finder 
using a display much like a radar PPI.  It used two crossed untuned loops 
and a vertical.  All three signals were amplified using tubes and one of the 
loops was fed to the horizontal deflection plates of a CRT and the other 
loop's signal was fed to the vertical plates.  The signal from the vertical 
was fed to the control grid of the CRT.  The project was essentially an XY 
scope built from the ground up.  He suggested figuring out the polarity of 
things by waiting for close lightening that was visible and correlating 
sightings with the display on the CRT.  You wouldn't use a general purpose 
scope because the fair weather condition would burn a spot in the center of 
the screen.  One more thing.  He wound the loops in hula hoops he had cut 
open.  I still have two hula hoops awaiting the project.  The bandwidth of 
his amplifiers was low audio to about 100 kHz.  I suspect that in today's 
radio environment some tuned traps would be necessary to notch out some of 
the strong signals in that frequency range.  You now have all the 
information I have and I am sure I could build one if only I could find the 
time.

Regards.

Max.  K 4 O DS.


More information about the Time-nuts_lists.febo.com mailing list