An antenna for measuring Schumann resonance in the atmosphere. This is a prototype antenna to be used with the Ligo/Virgo project. There is a concern that Schumann resonance may cause correlated noise in two or more Advanced Ligo or Advanced Virgo detectors as they attempt to find gravity waves. Independently detecting the magnetic component of the Shumann resonance will allow that noise to be identified and accounted for.
The core is 42 in. long, 1 in. diameter and is made of a high-permeability nickel alloy (EFI Alloy 79). The winding is 36 in. long, 79,295 turns of 26 GA magnet wire. That’s about 10,700 meters of wire weighing almost 30 pounds. The longest continuous length of wire we found was a 10 pound spool, so the winding has two splices. The splices were made at the end of a winding layer and are outside of the end plates.
The shield wrap is made of aluminized mylar and is connected to the ground wire with a small bolt.
coil_winding_guide
Wire guiding was done with a set of Teflon blocks.