Quote from: ian middleton on February 28, 2008, 11:25:24 AM
G'day all,

@Marco:  yes, a number of years ago I attatched my old tektronix scope to 2 electrodes (iron and aluminium) in the ground
about 15 feet apart. The scope had an input impedance of 50Mohms and I got a reading of about 0.5V DC. On top of that there was about 100mV random noise with the occasional spike. This noise could be heard as a strong hiss with high impedance ear phones. If I placed my hand on one of the electrodes the random noise increased to over 200mV.  The noise was of course AC

This experiment was done in England and the soil type was London clay.

Cheers

Ian

Hello Ian
That is quite intresting....
This hiss sounds like lightning strokes to me.
Intresting you note it increases when you put your hand on top.
Capcitive coupling to the atmosphere of some kind?
I need to do some testing now 

M.

@ marco:

Also, I believe mramos scoped his attempt.  It was posted back about a month ago or so.  I don't know how to tell you where it is.  I don't think he observed anything like Ian did but, he wasn't really getting any volts or mA out either.  I believe he said he was in sandy soil in Florida possibly.

If I had a scope, I would be all over my electrodes and my new coils to see what was actually going on.  Most of us have been reading ac all along with our digital meters and I have also shown ac with my analog one.  It may be fooling the meters somehow or it is really there.  I don't think we know for sure at this point except for what Ian just posted.  I don't think a scope can be fooled like the dmms.  I believe Ian's information is our first confirmed report of an ac component on these devices.  Anyone can correct me here if I am wrong about this.  Oh, and welcome to our group of experimenters.  I think you will find it interesting.

Bill

Hi Pirate
At first i did not find this earth battery thing intresting becuse of the low power output.
But my intrest indeed is growing as we can switch more cells in series to get to a greater voltage.
I once had a pdf file about constructing a 12.8 volt earth battery but i cannot find it anymore.
I will try to look it up it was a very nice document.
Time for me to start sticking rods in the ground too 

M.

@ Marco

You mean this?



http://theverylastpageoftheinternet.com/forsale/plans/earthbattery/ebpage2.htm

@ Hans


Hans, do you know how much electricity it takes (took) to vibrate the soft iron reed on that early loudspeaker? I'm not interested in making sound but real curious as to that reed moving up and down. I'm considering building one and was just wondering how strong and how far that reed could be made to work.

Thanks

David