CHAPTER 6
Their simple and cost-effective nature made them perfect candidates for use in Naval deep VLF stations. The high insulation requirement was not an excessive problem in the upscaled versions. These simple buried dipoles also served in transmitting deep VLF to any point on earth, or under earth. The Rogers antennas found their most amazing use in maintaining undersea communications. Signals injected into the earth in this manner was able to permeate seawater to great depth. Also, wireless signals transmitted out from submerged vessels were detectable at great distances by the buried Rogers dipole. To the Navy, the system represented a true marvel. Rogers patents have been alternately classified and declassified over the years. They amount to a wonderful patent file, a veritable study collection in the art of deep earth signalling.
Having become intimately familiar with each of these systems, radio engineers began designing systems to meet the peculiar requirements of the military. The capabilities of various style Military VLF wave radio, both elevated trellis and buried aerial forms, soon rivalled those of the original Marconi Company. Naval radio engineers reporting and registered every minor experience with VLF variables until a thorough empirical familiarity with the related geoprocesses had been amassed. It was discovered that minor environmental variations increasingly insignificant distortions to VLF the lower the frequency.
At these deep VLF frequencies, significant departures from the theoretical propagation laws began working on their behalf, strange and misunderstood geoprocesses actually seemed to empower propagation without the predicted attenuations. What this represented was a new means for establishing and maintaining a noise free, interference-proof radiosignalling system, whose terrestrial reach seemed to be virtually unlimited. Naval operators observed the solar driven geoprocesses which very slightly distorted their deep VLF signals, but did not dampen their resilience or strength. The only times in which deep VLF broadcasts experienced distortions and interferences was during certain extreme solar conditions. To this day, a military bureau studies, monitors, and reports solar flare conditions to the national communications community.
Communications is the absolute foundation for all Naval operations. Without unbroken secure-communications channels, naval operations are impossible. Naval radio Networks grew around deep VLF, often using valley-coupled catenary suspension aerials which resembled suspension bridges for size. Operating as low as 12 Kilocycles, these signals went out through both ground an sea, an unjammable, unstoppable signal capable of reaching submerged submarines. Only deep VLF could reach across the world without apparent loss, interconnecting both deep-sea and distant ocean going vessels with unstoppable efficiency. Naval deep VLF stations have remained the most dependable radiowave communications system for maintaining continuous telegraphic communications between fleet and command central. Naval deep VLF stations are huge and powerful, rivaling those which Marconi taught Several of these systems employed very large Alexanderson rotating radio frequency alternators. Others have maintained their use of surprisingly large Poulsen Arcs, these magnetron-like components often measuring in excess of ten feet per side in their larger embodiments. Most of he Naval deep VLF stations are yet in operation, a continuity which seems to speaks well of both their reliability and their status.
Deep VLF was restricted to the old radiotelegraphic mode, slow and laborious, Nevertheless, deep VLF was penetrating and powerful, capable of communicating through astounding distances of land and sea without interference of any kind. After the establishment of these very large geophysically coupled stations, new radiotelephonic methods made themselves available for ordinary non-classified Naval communications. While reliance on deep VLF wave transmitters remained the backbone of Naval reliance, reserved for secret coded communications and other command priorities, Naval engineers sought the advancement of the newer radiotelephonic shortwave systems. These systems, rapidly becoming available after World War I, were made possible by the advent of vacuum tubes. The subsequent applications of these revolutionary components to compact and powerful shortwave radio became a matter of Naval R&D priority. The NRL Radio Division engaged every possible new kind of electronics component and system in a rigorous and methodic search toward development of the very best equipment
Naval undertook the development and proliferation of “darklight” communications systems, those optical communications systems which grew out of research on crystals, crystal sensitivities, and optical energy research. Notable in these regards were the systems of Dr. William Coblentz, the first infrared radiophones. Using molybdenite, a mineral crystal extremely sensitive to infrared light fluctuations, Dr. Coblentz developed an invisible ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore signalling system which was indispensable throughout World War II. This prolific time of technical development in the radio arts began between the World Wars. Therefore Naval radio systems developed into more diversities than practically all the other military branches, a veritable research assault along many streams of thought. It was the Navy which first succeeded in reaching their own hightech state of electronics technology. It remains in their hands to this day.
PANGLOSS
By the end of World War II, Naval authorities had already begun drawing up their research agendas. It was they who, through oceanic testing of nuclear warheads, were some of the very first military groups to observe and recognize the implications in the EMP effects. Appreciating the need for maintaining secure-communications of an unjammable kind, Naval authority was quick to recognize that VLF, however deep, might not thoroughly serve the new world situation. The nuclear weaponry, whose unexpected appearance rocked the entire military community, exerted its lasting demands on their research expertise. This technology-demanding shockwave lasted long after the nuclear shots had long dissipated.
NRL directed a wide variety of experimental tests on much deeper VLF than had ever been conducted on such a grand scale. They already knew that the deeper the VLF signal frequency, the less ruffled signal continuity would be. Indeed, it was found that deeper than VLF waves could sustain EMP phenomena with no blackout vulnerability whatsoever. In this light, the numerous drawbacks of deepest VLF was not now objectionable. If radiowave systems were going to be relied upon at all, then these were the very epitome of reliance. Moving to even lower frequencies was going to place heavier requirements on the engineers, to build the monstrous stations, and on operators, who would now have to slow down their signalling to inhuman tempi. Indeed, automatic digital systems would be required to tap out the encrypted messages which had been loaded into their new electronic memory banks. Deepest VLF would indeed be very slow, a laborious means for exchanging large volumes of critical information. Nevertheless, here was the only alternative then available to the military community. In truth, during territorial emergency, only deepest VLF would maintain secure-communications continuity.