China has built a giant experimental radio antenna five times the size of New York City

NYC Wiki

Area • Total 468.484 sq mi (1,213.37 km2)

Very Long Baseline Array.

They can connect to space based telescopes and make a virtual receiver larger than the earth.

Been around for several years. I think that is how they are going image the black hole at the center of our galaxy (or something else crazy involving land and space based observation).

Give it a google and read up! Fun stuff!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Very Long Baseline Array.

Nope.
It is a device for subsurface investigations. Long wave emissions require long antennae. While it can be used for communications with submarines it would be very low bandwidth (and not exactly secure). Satellites are probably a better option.

TEM methods have been used in mineral exploration for more than half a century and are now used for an extremely broad range of applications in exploration, engineering, and environmental investigation.

zonge.com...

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

Pictures of a huge on ground grid kinda like fractals has been floating around as a "what could these be for?" in China found by users on Google Earth a few years or so....and we had no idea what they were for....

a reply to: mysterioustranger

A transmitter antenna for ELF would not have a grid layout.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

302 square miles only adds up to 19 plus mile diameter circle of land area.

a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

But if it's a rectangular area, half a mile wide...


"5 times the size of New York" is pretty meaningless.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

The antenna occupies 1,400 square miles of land, according to the article. That doesn't mean that the structure itself is that massive.

I get out of my depth with math quickly, but the simplest method of calculating area is, say, Width x Depth. (Two dimensions.) A normal room in a house with a width of 10 feet and a depth of 12 feet has an area of 120 square feet.

The (one-dimensional) line segment on the US map you provided is 1,500 miles long. Unless the Chinese hilariously built the antenna on an area of land 1,500 miles long and less than 1 mile wide, your map doesn't represent anything useful in visualizing the size of the structure or the land it occupies.

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

A ULF transmitter antenna would be a long piece of wire. The longer the better. To match the wavelength, or even a quarter of it.

a reply to: Phage

True. But still, saying that the antenna itself is five times the size of NYC is just plain silliness. I might as well as unravel the sweater I'm wearing, lay the yarn all the way out in a line, and say my sweater is as big as a basketball court.

ETA: Come to think of it, I wonder how long the wire would stretch from this array? Do you have any notion?

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

Agreed. It's quite a meaningless statement. But that source seems to be more interested in sensationalism than facts.

Calls it radar, for example.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

I'm with you on that.

Otherwise this sounds like HAARP

a reply to: vonclod

Otherwise this sounds like HAARP

No it doesn't.

But China does have an ionospheric heater. Which is what HAARP does.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Wait. It's all "frequencies." Right?

a reply to: Phage

You tell me, on this I have little knowledge, I will try to learn about it though.

a reply to: Phage

I went off to do other things but I'm still turning this over in my head.

I'm familiar with dividing a given sound frequency by the speed of sound to calculate wavelength, and the implications of that in acoustic applications (to avoid "standing waves", comb-filtering, etc.).

I'm trying to imagine what length of wire would be necessary to receive signals in the 300 hz to 3 kilohertz (ULF) range of the EM spectrum. Does the phenomena of standing waves have a parallel when working with the EM spectrum that influence the length of wire required?

a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

Calculation of wavelength follows the same principle but electromagnetic radiation travels at one speed (for most intents and purposes, and it is very high). And yes, harmonics are involved with determining antenna length, with each level being less efficient. The closer to the root wavelength the better.

nvm

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
Very Long Baseline Array.

They can connect to space based telescopes and make a virtual receiver larger than the earth.

Been around for several years. I think that is how they are going image the black hole at the center of our galaxy (or something else crazy involving land and space based observation).

Give it a google and read up! Fun stuff!!

I wonder what on earth are some of the various applications of this technology.

People are worried that it could cause cancer.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

People would be unnecessarily concerned in the case of radio telescopes as they're primarily just receiving signals from space and, if they were to transmit anything, it would be back into space not at the surrounding ground.