When you get tired of listening to man-made RF, build yourself a special VLF antenna (see pic) and attach an audio amplifier to it. If you are far enough away from power lines to minimize AC hum, you might hear sounds coming from nature such as spherics, dawn chorus, whistlers etc. Spherics sound like frying bacon (or like Rice Crispies when you pour in the milk) and are the most common sounds from nature to be heard; these are generated from thunderstorms at least 600 miles away.
The antenna is just 1 x 3's with hook up wire strung around it and held taught. Mine has 5 turns of wire, with over a hundred feet of wire all in all.
Dawn chorus sounds like a flock of birds, generated by magnetic storms and usually heard early in the morning.
With the antenna built below, which is a little over 4 foot square, and an audio amplifier (Radio Shack still sells them, get 'em while they are still around) you can have lots of fun checking into what nature is "transmitting" when the other HF bands are not so entertaining.
At this location have only heard spherics so far. Also, by chance, I captured the sounds of radar coming from an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System). Those are the planes with the gigantic dome atop.
You can even feed the audio from the audio amp into a wireless FM transmitter and send the sounds into the house and capture them on a dongle-SDR radio tuned to the FM band. Then you can record the sounds using HDSDR, or use audio analysis software ( I use fatpigdog's audio analyzer) to visualize the noises of nature.
Attached is a screen shot of spherics captured on an audio analyzer. Each spheric appears as a long horizontal line going across the screen.
Those folks living out in the boonies have a distinct advantage because they are away from the man made noises.
Lots of information on the 'Net regarding listening to sounds of nature for those interested, even actual recordings of these phenomena.
The antenna is just 1 x 3's with hook up wire strung around it and held taught. Mine has 5 turns of wire, with over a hundred feet of wire all in all.
Dawn chorus sounds like a flock of birds, generated by magnetic storms and usually heard early in the morning.
With the antenna built below, which is a little over 4 foot square, and an audio amplifier (Radio Shack still sells them, get 'em while they are still around) you can have lots of fun checking into what nature is "transmitting" when the other HF bands are not so entertaining.
At this location have only heard spherics so far. Also, by chance, I captured the sounds of radar coming from an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System). Those are the planes with the gigantic dome atop.
You can even feed the audio from the audio amp into a wireless FM transmitter and send the sounds into the house and capture them on a dongle-SDR radio tuned to the FM band. Then you can record the sounds using HDSDR, or use audio analysis software ( I use fatpigdog's audio analyzer) to visualize the noises of nature.
Attached is a screen shot of spherics captured on an audio analyzer. Each spheric appears as a long horizontal line going across the screen.
Those folks living out in the boonies have a distinct advantage because they are away from the man made noises.
Lots of information on the 'Net regarding listening to sounds of nature for those interested, even actual recordings of these phenomena.
