+- Blitzortung.org Forum (https://forum.blitzortung.org)
+-- Forum: Public Forums (https://forum.blitzortung.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=29)
+--- Forum: Hardware, Software, Lightning Physics (https://forum.blitzortung.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=30)
+--- Thread: Electrical field measurement (/showthread.php?tid=3703)
Electrical field measurement - Elektrofeldmeter - 2023-04-23
Hi,
I am an electronic enthousiastic and of course a Blitzortung fan. In order to complete my lightning detection sensoric I developed a field mill to detect the change of the electrical field (not the electric part of the electromagnetic wave but the quasi steady electric field) when a thunderstorm is over my garden. It took times and several trial and errors but at least I managed it.
About the concept:
The device is working with USB (and can be used with a simple power bank) and generate a local wifi network so that one can monitor the results on the smartphone. Typically, you are on a hot spot far from home it is rainy and you stay in your car monitoring the change of electrical field.
If it is worthwhile I may invest time showing how I did it, it was a very nice first project and may be some other people may profit of it.
About the results:
There was a thunderstorm over Mainz (DE) during the evening of 21.04.2023.
and I could extract the following plot representing the charges and the discharges of the cloud above me. Very interesting was to observe a lightning and few milliseconds later on the Webserver of the field mill the drop down of the electrical field. It is really like a capacitor charing till reaching the electrical breakdown. Also very interesting is to observe how long it takes to converge back to a 0 V/m field even if no clouds were to be seen.
More on this picture here below:
All of this would not have been possible without the input from this website (Stefan Kneifel).
I hope that you find this as exciting as I found it. Do not hesitate to share your feelings and questions about it.
Regards
User: 1871
Detector: 2432
RE: Electrical field measurement - nerd65 - 2023-04-24
Looking at the trace of that graph makes me think it's very likely that I have experienced the same phenomena using a different method.
Many years ago, in the 1980s I was very active of the HF bands. On several occasions during afternoon thunderstorms I noticed that while monitoring on 21MHz there was a slow buzzing sound which built up in amplitude and buzz rate to be abruptly terminated with the typical sferic sound concurrent with a local lightning flash. This was using a 1/4 wave vertical antenna in the centre of the corrugated iron roof of the house. I still have audio recordings of this on a cassette tape somewhere in storage but no tape player.
Regards.
RE: Electrical field measurement - Andrew.Instone-Cowie - 2023-05-03
Nice project! You should publish it
RE: Electrical field measurement - Vladimir - 2023-05-03
(2023-04-24, 09:12)nerd65 Wrote: Looking at the trace of that graph makes me think it's very likely that I have experienced the same phenomena using a different method.
Many years ago, in the 1980s I was very active of the HF bands. On several occasions during afternoon thunderstorms I noticed that while monitoring on 21MHz there was a slow buzzing sound which built up in amplitude and buzz rate to be abruptly terminated with the typical sferic sound concurrent with a local lightning flash. This was using a 1/4 wave vertical antenna in the centre of the corrugated iron roof of the house. I still have audio recordings of this on a cassette tape somewhere in storage but no tape player.
Regards.
it should be crazy to go to digitizing studio and hear it again on a phone/pc =)
RE: Electrical field measurement - Vladimir - 2023-05-03
It's awesome! Pocket fluxmeter.
Would wonder to test it in a storm chasing =)
How much did all the components and material cost approximately? Know, just kinda these equipment are expensive, isn't it?