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_tensioner
The wire guide and tensioner. The wire is guided by two sets of Teflon blocks, one set before and one set after the tension wheels. The top wheel is a spring-loaded idler, the lower wheel is connected to a DC motor run with a constant current power supply. This provides a constant torque to tension the wire.