THE BORDERLAND EXPERIMENTER
EXPERIMENT: Ground Antennas
By Gerry Vassilatos & Michael Theroux
THE EXPERIMENTS WHICH WILL HERE BE DESCRIBED ARE NOT IN THEMSELVES DANGEROUS. THERE IS DANGER FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT TAKE ORDINARY PRECAUTIONS WHEN USING AC POWERED RADIOS. ANY WORK PERFORMED ON SUCH RADIOS DEMANDS DISCONNECTION FROM THE MAINS DURING ALL PREPARATORY PHASES OF THESE EXPERIMENTS. NEVER CONNECT WIRES TO ANY RADIO WHICH HAS BEEN LEFT OPERATING. HAZARDOUS SHOCK CAN RESULT. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PERFORM THESE EXPERIMENTS DURING A STORM! GROUND ANTENNAS ARE DIRECT CONNECTIONS TO EARTH. WE SUGGEST YOU TAKE PRECAUTION BY OBTAINING AN INEXPENSIVE LIGHTNING ARRESTER FROM LOCAL RADIO MARKETS.
THE historical essay on Ground Antennas is only a preliminary bibliography, a foundation upon which to place our empirical confidence. It is through the agency of just such articles and patents that an arcane world model finds its most complete explanation. The inherent wonder of signals detected by ground-connected shortwave receivers is their ability to receive signals with greater strength and clarity than conventional aerials, and to reveal the bioactivity of subterranean propagation. Beyond their use as audio “capture systems”, such shortwave receivers display other more intriguing characteristics which lead our attentions up toward a technology of the sublime. With the shortwave receiver as a radionic tuning instrument, an interface which captures and converts geomantic dynamics into audio signals, we have made several astounding observations.
Recall that when shortwave radio receivers were employed as peculiar detectors of geomantic energy, additional unexpected phenomena began to flood the relevant literature. Close inspection reveals that both “ground radio” and “ground antennas” are the components of Radionic phenomena, and are completely dependent on Radionic principles for their astounding and otherwise anomalous performance. Explorations of the interactions between radio signals and geomantic energies require very simple equipment. Geomantic energy is biodynamic, and actively modifies and augments radio signal carriers. This presentation will focus primarily on the more qualitative aspects obtained through the use of ground-buried aerial designs, although it will certainly follow that stringent quantitative measurements will be both secured and reported.
This basic preliminary experiment with the simplest ground aerial teaches the biological growth characteristic of signals received through the ground. Indeed, the implementation of a simple ground pipe in place of an aerial, also converts the shortwave receiver into a diagnostic tool. We may, by merely sweeping the receiver dial, probe and “view” the biodynamic conditions prevalent in the ground. Despite the great variety of ground aerial designs, we observe a consistent signature of the ground densified biodynamic energies.
EXPERIMENT WITH A COPPER GROUND PIPE
(G. Vassilatos)
Please observe the precautionary notes placed at the beginning of this article! When you have, try a simple experiment for yourself. Obtain a short (2 feet) section of copper pipe from any hardware store. Make a small cut into the top of this with a hacksaw. The cut is made so that you may twist into it a secure wire lead. Although the placement of the pipe is most important for many radionic experiments, you will not be required to select the most potent spot. While there are those whose qualitative sensitivities permit such a direct location of highly “active” ground locations, there are more quantitative methods to assist in this necessary survey. If you wish to conduct your experiments outdoors, you will need appropriate portable radios and the like. In this case, you will more readily discover the phenomena which we will mention. Plants are great indicators for determining the right placement of ground antennas and earth batteries — as they are also great indicators of subsurface mineral content.
If you wish to establish the very best point, find a place where dark green vegetation thrives. Empirical explorations will serve you best. While desertified plots of earth generally reveal the absence of easily accessible ground currents, you will discover an amazing phenomenon in such a location. Wait until the ground is soft. I usually wait until after a good rainfall before driving my experimental antennas down, having selected a very verdant garden strip just below my office window. You will need an available window, if you wish to maintain the arrangement with the radio indoors. Wire will be run from your receiver to the ground antenna, so it is imperative that your window coincide with the ground point which you have selected.
Wear gloves when performing this portion of the experiment. Using a small sledge, carefully drive in a 2 foot long copper pipe. The pipe you choose can be much longer according to your local needs. I left a 4 inch section above ground for the hookup. Obtain a sufficient length of coaxial cable (RG 58 works fine) to establish a lead between the pipe and your radio receiver. If long enough, an old straight electric guitar cable will do. I clipped off both phono-plugs and used the center conductor for my experiments. Neatly trim away the outer shielding with rubber tape. First connect the center lead directly to the “aerial” terminal of your receiver. If your [22] receiver has only an external antenna, connect the ground lead directly to this antenna. Now carefully drop this wire from your window to the ground antenna. Close the window to hold the line, and go outside to establish your connection.
OBSERVATION 1
The line will instantly be flooded with ground currents, very high potentials which will not cause “shock”, but which may over-excite your system. Take care not to handle these lines for too long a time without rubber gloves. The line from ground may appear “dead” to all appearance, but it is a source of powerful vitalistic effects which can cause fatigue and other congestive sensations. Once attached to your receiver, leave the wire alone. The ground currents may be applied to any kind of receiver. I successfully received television signals with a ground antenna, obtaining surprisingly clarified signals on most of the shorter wave channels (7 through UHF) without any other aerial. Ground antennas are very useful for those who live in mountain-bound locations, where television reception is distorted or even absent.
I first connected the lead wire from ground to a small shortwave receiver, a Hammerlund 38-S, which was acquired at an amateur radio sale. The simple ground pipe brought in a surprising wealth of very strong signals. When you first hear these signals for yourself, you must take time to realize that the original radio theory “prohibited” all such possibility. Straight connection to ground was theoretically considered an impossibility, being the “neutralization” of signals received through the aerial wave route. It was precisely because of these observations that the original theoretical model, which spoke only of “radio skywaves”, was first modified to accommodate the obvious ground wave activity. Once dogmatically fixed, radio theory required continual “a posteriori” modifications: modifications from the empirical world. Now you will begin to observe and appreciate numerous empirical effects which are yet considered “impossible”. With your small system, you will literally peer into the subterranean world, where bioactivities are in persistent dynamic exchange.
OBSERVATION 2
The first such effect has to do with the “response” characteristics of ground currents. Tune to one of your stronger stations. While listening, momentarily disconnect the ground wire. Notice the sudden drop in volume and signal integrity. How long did this volume diminution occur? Now reconnect the lead, while paying close attention to the sound quality over time. How long did the signal require in order to reach its original volume? I have repeatedly observed that the disconnection volume drop is rather instantaneous. But the reconnection volume requires a much longer time, some 40 seconds in certain cases. The slow restoration effect sometimes occurs in a discontinuous fashion, first rising slowly (20 seconds), and then very suddenly (3 seconds). The volume increase in this manner can be both unexpected and surprising, often reaching volume levels which actually exceed their original states.
You will find that every local change in proximity to the circuitry of your simple system will provoke the “restoration response”. Signals seem to lag each change which has been applied to the system. The adjustment of the ground antenna will provoke the response, a slow rise in volume occurring perhaps in 35 seconds after an adjustment has been made. As with the response of living things, the ground receiving receiver behaves as a quasi-biological entity; a poignant and astonishing glimpse of Biodynamic behavior. Bio-organisms do not behave in the manner of digital switches. But once signals have been impacted by any electrical expression, ground received signals will execute an exaggerated restoration. This exaggerated response will be observed with every local electrical disturbance. The mere activation of an appliance or lamp will evoke the rapid diminution of any signal. But the restoration phase can gradually increase in volume until it overwhelms the listener, reaching excessive volumes. This response is more than “withdrawal and restoration”. Its effects can persist long after the impact has occurred. Proper placement of the ground antenna absolutely determines this magnification effect, an observation made throughout the last Century.
Provided the ground “antenna” has been accurately placed in an “active spot”, the effect most notably occurs with any electrostatic discharge. The first response is for the signal to “shrink”, or “withdraw”. The ground signal gradually reemerges in strength, but continues expanding beyond its normal volume, “flaring” into distorted brilliance before settling down to its normal volume. This amplification effect is not to be confused with the commonly observed shortwave “fading” effect, and is the direct result of disturbances which have occurred in proximity to the system. These brilliant audio “flares” can persist for upward of ten seconds after the disturbance has passed, followed by a very gradual decrease in volume to the original signal strength. The flaring response was artificially arranged and used in a great number of post-Victorian devices.
This biodynamic response was used to magnify vital energies, and was evoked by Turn of the Century systems through the use of pulsed electrical disturbances. The highly intensified quasi-electrical potentials, subsequently obtained, were used to cure illness and light lamps. In other appropriate instruments, such resultant currents were used to fulfill a variety of other experimental functions. With the requisite proper location of the ground terminal, the effect was deliberately applied to the ground currents themselves (Tesla) and to human patients (Abrams). While the results were often spectacular to the senses, the latent effects were seldom addressed.
We concur with those select Radionists, who condemned the electrostimulation of ground and vital currents as an inferior methodology. Such methods may provide intriguing solutions to the need for electrical power, but as that is a degenerate technology in its own right, we have sought other means by which to fulfill the utilitarian needs of humanity. The electrostimulation methods provoke natural rage on an unappreciated scale, with effects not recognized by all but the most astute observers. It is a means of which we also highly disapprove. There are indeed better and more naturally acceptable means by which to evoke the growth and magnification response in ground currents. One may romance the favors of Nature without the methods which deliberately enrage her furious wrath.
OBSERVATION 3
There are other effects one notices, especially when tuning faint stations with ground antennas. It seems that tuned stations actually become stronger in the act of being heard, a bizarre effect requiring fine order readjustments. Indeed, continued reception of faint [23] stations evidence definite auto-magnification effects. Obtained only through the use of analogue (variable capacity) tuning systems, the tuning process seemingly magnifies the strength of any faintly received signal. One may thus begin with a signal “granule”, and end with a booming volume. Such entuned signal growth only occurs with continued attentive reception, a remarkable phenomenon in which receivers literally draw and automagnify signals on demand of the listening site. This strange connective “supply-response” function does not occur without human agency however. In absence of the human “recipient”, no such amplification occurs, a curiosity which will find numerous skeptics and critics. But try the experiment for yourself.
Tune a weak station and leave the room. The signal fades away. Walk in again and quickly tune the signal. Walk away once more. The signal fades. Once more, tune the signal and walk back from the receiver. With very minor waverings, the signal strength will remain unchanged…until you walk directly before the receiver. Stay this time. Tune the signal and wait. You will literally hear the signal gradually rising in volume. The faint signal will gradually, almost perceptibly, grow in strength for you as you remain in the room. Now tune the signal carefully, rocking the dial to the left or right of center. Each readjustment raises the signal strength, until the volume is strong. Periodic minor adjustments will reveal a remarkable volume magnification, one which can reach enormous and fixed volume levels. This observation takes time and patience. With such patience, one can thus literally obtain a “signal bonfire” from a “signal spark”. We have observed a signal increase while attentions are being focused on the signal, with a subsequent complete fade back to faintness after the recipients have been removed.
Why can you tune such a weak station, periodically making “fine adjustments”, and obtain a signal magnification? Tuning a weak signal through a ground antenna, and then observing the manner in which that signal actually “grows” in strength for a human recipient, is a demonstration of radionic significance. The same has been observed when radionic currents are selected through tuning instruments, and allowed to stimulate a biomonitored plant. The results are always the same, plant responses indicating the gradual increase of radionic current strength. Unlike aerial currents, ground signals are more intensely radionic in nature. They actively seek to infuse appropriate bio-organismic “capacities”. Ground currents enter the receiver and are there entuned. The receiving circuit projects an infusive and thready auric radiance which floods the listening space until its natural saturation has been reached.
Those who are in the listening space add an additional absorptivity, a capacity to allow a continued projection of auric emanations. This continued projectivity into proximal recipients produces several characteristic attributes. Recipients who possess an innate desire, an emotional response for the signals, produce sudden surges in the reception strength. When attention is strongly focused on some faint signal, then it will grow. The ground emerging signals will therefore intensify for you and those with you in a room, pouring into the listening space and being thus articulated among human “capacities”. As radio signals are loaded with the articulation of human attention, the signal will grow more rapidly. It has recently been observed that the very same signal, when later left unattended, will fade back into the crashing background. Desirous attempts made to relocate and raise the same signal are not unsuccessful. The absence of appropriate numbers in the human recipients will modify the rapidity of signal growth. The humanly guided tuning process which engages such signals actually entunes the recipients in a radionic manner.
The refinement and entunement of such signals are very obviously a radionic phenomenon of the deepest significance. Entuned magnification effects are therefore radionic entunement effects, the magnification of human articulations by human recipients. Neither electrical nor radio currents possess the articulate nature capable of exhibiting such a detailed biodynamic function. We have previously demonstrated this phenomenon with biomonitored plants, an effect which experimenters may easily reproduce. The implications of this strange effect are enormous for the theoretician. They compel the examination of every notion of radio signal causality. The only researcher who has treated this effect is Eric Dollard, whose excellent work describes “energy reciprocation” between Tesla impulse transmitters and receivers.
The fact that signals may be drawn from ground on human demand, and automagnified by human presence, should provoke heated debate. How can one explain the veritable control of a distant transmitter by a small receiver? In a biodynamic sense, we are not required to address distant transmitters, since ground currents automagnify with regularity. The additional energy which feeds radionically entuned and capacity-demanded ground signals is sourced within the great subterranean depths.
OBSERVATION 4
You will notice that, soon after you have first introduced the pipe into the ground, your first received stations will begin to “grow” in strength. This effect will continue for days, growing in increments of strength and clarity. Fixed volumes begin to reach levelled states in 2 or 3 days, a growth process uncommon with aerial signals. But beyond the signal growth of the strong stations, one begins observing the gradual increase in station numbers with time. Your initially strong stations, those which grew in the course of 3 days, will now become interspersed by a great population of faint signals. This “background” population will then increase in magnitude and clarity until your sweep dial is filled with an immense “crackling”. By day 4 or 5 with this arrangement, my sweep dial was literally covered with the continual “crackle” of new signals.
Sweeping the dial will thus continually bring in tiny signal “granules” between the stronger signals, those which normally mask these almost imperceptible stations. The gradual appearance of new stations, and the gradual “arrival” of a great many minor signals, begins manifesting with time. The buried pipe becomes a “receptive site”, into which the upwelling currents actively pour. These effects were rediscovered when buried metals began producing their characteristic “tone signatures”. A singularly fascinating study, we found that each buried metal literally became “saturated” with ground currents. This saturation process also required a gradual period of time (Earth Tones audio tape, BSRF).
Because of the slow growth process, where stations grow in both strength and number with time, one must eventually secure a larger “capacity” receiver. One learns that shortwave radionic applications need specific and well designed receivers — of the vacuum tube type or germanium transistor variety. Many of the newer digital models are insufficient. Through a gradual familiarity with numerous models, [24] each experimenter will settle upon the use of one or two particular favorites. Mr. William Lehr rebuilt a Zenith Trans-Oceanic for me. It is a receiver which I cherish, not only because of its wonderful “warm” tone and excellent operation with the ground antenna, but because he rebuilt it for me personally. The popular set is equipped with small screw terminals, one for the normal onboard telescoping antenna, and the other for a ground wire. I disengaged the onboard telescoping antenna, connecting its internal lead wire instead to the ground screw. The ground antenna was then connected to the aerial screw.
In this reversal, the receiver recognizes the ground antenna as the “aerial”, while the collapsible onboard antenna is recognized as the “ground”. This “inversion” of radio inputs more effectively works the shortwave capacity in absorbing ground emerging signals, the collapsible aerial becoming a miniature “counterpoise” ground. A great many separate phenomena are noted with this arrangement, one pioneered by Nikola Tesla and (most recently) explored in greatest depth by Mr. Eric Dollard. Touching the telescoping “ground” causes the complete eradication of signal strengths across the dial, the withdrawal of this touch causing the characteristic slow return to original volume. One discovers now the necessity of adjusting the telescopic “ground” with each tuned station, a means by which increased “room capacity” is achieved. The telescopic “ground” facilitates an increased connectivity within the volume of space surrounding the receiver.
OBSERVATION 5
With persistent saturation, your ground pipe antenna will continue producing a surprising proliferation of signals. In this growing manner, signals kept appearing from greater and greater distances. Understand that the reception of foreign signals through the ground matrix is completely different from that which presupposes the downward “skybeaming” of signals. With ground reception there is no “skipping”. Ground reception is the result of direct contact conduction. Signals have to travel from their sources to you…in straight lines! You may therefore understand that the most weak and distant stations, those innumerable transmitters which lie in the “geography between” yourself and certain strong foreign stations, will begin to make their appearance. A slow growth period will prove this effect to you.
But the loss of signal population, when the pipe is retracted for a few minutes, cannot be comprehended unless we further examine the “signal accretion” phenomenon. The acquisition of new stations into a ground antenna occurs throughout the day, regardless of the weather or time. The Radionists who studied these phenomena recognized that ground emerging signals actively seek out both ground-proximal metals as well as those which are actually buried. Ground currents can rise to the surface when metal probes are simply aimed toward the ground. It has been observed that the mere positioning of a blunt-ended cable over ground is sufficient to cause an upward flow of ground currents, a reception of signals being obtained (Theroux).
The process is one by which ground currents literally “attach” themselves to the downward pointing conductor, entwining and fixating themselves through time. If this is true for conductors which merely point into earth, the same is especially true of metalloforms which have been buried. The upwelling emergence of ground currents is the result of the pipe itself, a response to a metal body which has been buried near the surface. The ground antenna behaves as a very definitive metallic “attractor”. Driven down into a few feet of earth, metal structures literally attract ground currents from their deeply consigned pathways upward. The process of attraction and accretion requires time. This explains why signal strengths begin to grow when buried terminals are first buried, continuing until the pipe and receiver have reached their capacity to absorb.
The withdrawal of signals, after the pipe has been momentarily disturbed, is problematic from every electrical point of view. What principle can be cited in explanation of this remarkable signal disappearing act? What causes the signals to “shrink away” from the ground terminal when its growing potential has been disturbed for a few moments of inspection? This “disengagement phenomenon”, the striking disappearance of signals, compels the recognition of an “irritability” factor when dealing with ground currents. Irritability is a biological characteristic not present in electrical currents. What have these signals to do with biological activities? Wishing to address those skeptics who cannot accept this energetic growth characteristic in grounded terminals, I pulled up the pipe to better inspect its surface. Fully expecting to find the metal “pitted” in thousands of tiny corrosion points”, the probable points in which the innumerable signals appeared, I was not a small bit shocked to find the pipe in excellent condition. There was not a bit of visible corrosion, certainly no pitting or scarring in the otherwise brilliant sheen which it had when I pounded it down into the earth. But the mystery did not stop there.
I placed the pipe back into a new location, adjacent to its original ground chamber. Thus driven down to the exact depth as it had been before, I went inside to listen once again. All but the strongest signals had disappeared. Obviously, the multiplication of signals is not the result of corrosion, not the result of continued ground “electrolysis”. While “pitting” the pipe exterior with innumerable exposures will increase the effective conductive surface of any pipe to an amazing degree, such corrosion will play little part in the actual increase of signal receptivity. In fact, neither ground antennas nor earth batteries corrode; a perplexing fact which we have rediscovered long after Nathan Stubblefield made its first mentioned.
OBSERVATION 6
Deep fades are never heard with ground antennas, but one does observe sudden “sweeps” which indicate strange and instantaneous ground disturbances. These do not disturb station reception, certainly not distorting or destabilizing the actual signals being received. Using ground antennas, only a very slow wavering is sometimes observed. These exceedingly slow waverings occur with no clock-like regularity, suggesting that true biological pulsations are being observed. Such exhibitions were once referred to me by Dan Winter as the deep earth “tides”, meaning by this that the biodynamic currents clearly engage in native pulsations. Since we have never glimpsed those currents of enormous vital potential, those “dragons” which normally reside deep in the heart of earth. These currents are definitely modified by influences in outer space, rising toward the surface during certain seasons, and diving back down to their mysterious haunts once again.
During sun-transitional hours, ground received SW signals do [25] not appear to be “geodesically” selected. In other words, one does not receive a complete “global sweep” of signals, from nation to nation. The “sweep” may display continuity across a large region of ground, a cluster of neighboring nations being heard in sequence, but each region is not received with continuity. One discovers that whole regions of the earth suddenly emerge from the SW background and literally predominate the reception field.
Selectivity of signals through the ground occurs as if whole regions of the world have been “switched” on and off — independent of station schedules. Directly and most strongly related to lunar phase, one observes the sudden emergence of whole regional group signals which take preeminence over all others. One can tell the portion of a lunar month by these strange regional “fluorescences”, an amazingly repetitive pattern. In Staten Island, ground radio signals follow a mysterious pattern of arrivals. Modulated by the moon, signals from Canada (New), Northern Europe (First Quarter), South America (Full), the Mediterranean (Last Quarter) will predominate across the available broadcast bands.
EXPERIMENT WITH the “Subantenna” coil
(M. Theroux)
The “Subantenna” coil will require a bit more work on the part of the experimenter to construct, but is a worthy undertaking as we can see from the ad that this design was a commercial success. It has also proven itself over and above simple grounded rods, to be a highly sensitive receiver when properly placed in the ground. Its construction is actually quite simple. You will need roughly 30 feet of RG 58 coaxial cable, one roll of black electrical tape, one alligator clip, a pair of scissors, and a pair of wire strippers. The “Subantenna” coil, when finished will be about 4-5 inches tall and 6 inches in diameter. Start by cutting the wire into two sections — one 16 feet long for the coil — the remaining 14 feet will be used for connection to your radio. Begin winding the first turn of the coil (using the 16 ft. section) so that it is exactly 6 inches in diameter. No coil form is necessary with this method — as you add each successive turn, you will be taping the turns together in three evenly separated places. Add another turn and tape. By the time you are finished, you will have about ten full turns. Cover the bottom bare end of the coax wire with tape. You should have about 6 inches of free wire at the top of your coil. Strip away about 1 inch from this end exposing the middle conductor wire. This solid wire is the “connection point” for the lead wire to your external antenna jack on your shortwave or AM radio. Cut away the excess shielding so that it is flush with the insulation. You are now ready to bury the “Subantenna” coil. Choose a spot of soft ground free from hazard, and bury the coil (be sure your “connection point” is sticking above ground or you’ll be digging it up again). Fasten the alligator clip to one end of the remaining 14 ft. piece of coax, clipping this onto the exposed middle conductor of the coil. You can now run this wire to your radio, fastening it to the external antenna terminal. If there is a specific jack for the external antenna, you may need to match it with the proper plug.
Observations
Initially, one will notice a substantial increase in reception. The most intriguing aspect of the Subantenna, or any grounded aerial, is its ability to cause signals to grow in intensity over a period of a time. After a few days one will be able to hear signals with increased clarity and depth. One of the most important features of this ground antenna is its static free reception. You will note that the conductor in the coil is insulated from the actual earth itself — conductivity plays no role in the function of this design. While the Subantenna coil filters static and brings in signals with extreme distinctness, there are drawbacks. One may notice after the coil has had sufficient time to become saturated with ground currents, reception of signals becomes so powerful that stations normally considered far enough apart, will “bleed over” onto one another. I have experienced five distinct stations hundreds of miles apart, pouring through the radio on one frequency at the same time. This can be a problem with weaker local stations being absorbed by more powerful distant stations, but generally the 50,000 watt AM stations ring through clearly. Only on given nights does this bleed over occur.
The warmth, clarity, response, and strength of such grounded radio systems are testimony enough. Coupled with the empirical reports and logs previously mentioned, plenty of proof is provided that, in many instances (especially concerning eidetic content), ground radio is a superior form of reception over Hertzian receivers. Curiously enough, we have seen many return to their antennas after having experienced radio through the ground. While no explanation is given, we assume they may need to hold on to the belief that radio only flies on waves through the air — all the while listening to the crackle, hiss, and fade of their favorite station.