CHAPTER 6
Military VLF and ELF Technology
INTERFERENCE
The development of Ionospheric EMP techniques, and the threat of nuclear assault from hostile Houses yet very much a possibility, Military leadership imposed a first class research priority toward developing the “unjammable” communications system. The use of EMP as a tactical “first-strike” represented new weaponry requiring the development of new secure-communications systems. Geophysicists and radio communications engineers knew that sufficiently empowered EMP weaponry would be ruinous for a wide range of communications channels. Completely dependent upon the ionospheric media, certain channels would be totally eradicated, a condition which could be prolonged indefinitely. Military deep-space test shots in Project ARGUS and STARFISH proved that a succession of small, well-placed nuclear blasts could maintain his curtain of silence for months. RADAR EMP could also maintain these states without the implementation of nuclear shots. Since the common feature in all of these disturbances was the Ionosphere itself, the key to the development of an unjammable radiowave system would be one whose dependence on ionospheric states was minimal. An “invincible” radio communications system.
VLF wave stations, exact duplicates of Marconi VLF systems, had progressed in their improvements through some 40 years of military engineering. Redesigned primarily by the Naval Research Laboratory to serve the very diverse needs of submerged and seagoing fleets, these systems grew into the highly efficient radiowave mammoths known today. Close examination of these stations reveals the severity of military entrapment in the Marconi wave radio paradigm, a reliance on alternating radio currents which effectively limited both the operational effectiveness of these technologies and the mindset of military planners. The huge powerplants, the grand radio frequency generators, enormous capacitor-inductor rooms, the geologically coupled aerials, and the extensive ground planes; all these found their origin with Guglielmo Marconi, father of inefficient wave radio.
When one considers the sheer size and extreme power requirements for the successful operation of systems such as these, one can well appreciate the absolute disgust with which Tesla viewed their ambitious, though futile construction. Having already estimated the effective rage and limits of wave radio technologies on every frequency band, Tesla continually commented on the available Radiant Energy spectra which he alone seemed able to engage. The history of VLF does not begin with LORAN VLF or ELF projects such as SANGUINE. It begins with Marconi and those who were attracted and enthralled with his modest and thoroughly plagiarized achievements.
Despite the fact that Marconi stations utilized VLF alternations of excessive power, these stations were incapable of driving their slow telegraphic signals across the sea. Unlike the aerial paths which early UHF type sparkgap beams, those of Hertz, Righi, and Lodge, the VLF wave signal was largely propagated directly through the ground. It was discovered that VLF wave signals would be most powerfully launched across the oceans only when geophysically coupled to “highly conductive” geological formations. More like huge guides or “chutes”, as referred to by early British wireless designers, VLF waves were directed across the seas through massive aerial structures built direcdy into the ground. There were consequences to these applications of VLF radiowave energies directly into the geophysical environment however, consequences which became his worst nightmare. Ultimately, Marconi would abandon the VLF endeavor to his engineers, while he sailed out to sea in search of lost dreams and shortwaves.
In the coupling of his VLF stations to the ground, certain sea-connecting valleys were found to be the very best sites, but not all. Certain “highly conductive” bedrocks and soils were very good sites, but not all. And certain geological features were extremely good sites, but not all. And this inconsistency in discerning the best station sites represented both an essential mystery and impediment to the radio station engineers of the Marconi Company. Familiar with the vagaries of early earth and aqueous conduction radio, many experimenters believed that both subterranean and suboceanic geology were entirely responsible for these effects. But despite both these theoretical views, and their best efforts, no consistency in actual test transmissions could ever be obtained.
The mystery represented by this phenomenon, where certain topographies seemed to best launch VLF waves as opposed to identically composed or oriented others, was by then beyond the deciphering ability of the Marconi Radio engineering community. Able to discern the best VLF station locations, they remained unable to use geological considerations alone in planning VLF wave launch sites. Neither geological strata, nor geosynclines, nor faultlines could be equated with the very best station sites. It was clear that some mysterious “parageological structure” was exercising its powerful and elusive influence on VLF signals. Those who glimpsed the reality of anomalous subterranean superventions were never quite able to discover the consistent geological patterns with which these were associated. This influence was not variable. It maintained its character over time, and thus represented a solid structural reality, a topography whose exact nature could somehow never quite be determined by quantitative measurements alone.
Marconi engineers recognized that VLF signals tunneled into mysterious natural “channels” the structure of which was not apparent to instrumental measurement at all. Launched across the seas, there were specific which seemed capable of transmitting VLF with seemingly incredible magnifications in power; routes where the weakest signal often arrived in Europe with uncommon strength. Yet other routes were found to offer impossibly resistance to the most powerful energetic applications; routes which quenched VLF signals much more rapidly than theory predicted as possible. In the stubborn insistence of some engineers, those who demanded that these effects were entirely due to “inaccessible” geological features alone, we see evidence of the fundamental difference between view quantitative and view qualitative. Geological guidance, those superficial considerations incapable of providing consistent engineering guidance, never provided the accuracy of a much more archane geomantic science upon which early ground conduction experimenters based their successes.
No differences in geological structure, conductivity, or mineral predominance were ever determined in this study. VLF seemed to obey the strict dictates of strata which had no discernible geophysical boundaries. VLF ground pathways depended upon the existence of a deeper than geological structure, one which could be “felt” and “sensed”, but never measured. This permeating “biodynamic structure”, which could not be measured with inert and unresponsive instruments, absolutely constrained the proper construction of VLF stations; a secret which most VLF engineers did not openly admit Dubious to some, the experimental achievements of these early investigators proved the biodynamic theory. The observed results of these legendary accounts remain impossible to obtain otherwise. Ground propagation signalling formed the historical heart of experimental radio systems. Ground conduction radio signals were strong only when specific “conduction lanes” were located, the proper location of these ground conduction lanes requiring careful old prospecting methods. Noticing the “energetic flowlines” in a district is yet not considered scientific. Nevertheless, these geomantic methods proved their effectiveness in establishing the very best telegraphic and telephonic routes in the years just preceding the ground radio experiments. Those who early discovered that telegraphic and vocal signals could be transmitted from point to point through the ground were, in most instances, thoroughly familiar with these methods.