[Rudy]

I just finished looking at the "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING ELEMENTS AND COMPOUNDS" from Charles L. Christensen. US Pat 7,750,634 B1

The patent does contain H3 Tec copyrighted information, in the form of some PCB artwork, parts lists and source code. This probably helped lead the patent examiner into believing that the apparatus described is able to perform the intended function.

In the detailed description of the embodiment, a rather simplistic explanation of nuclear magnetic resonance is given, along with an explanation on how the resonant frequency of an element can be affected by external environmental factors such as the presence of a static magnetic field (ie. the earth's magnetic field). It then talks about how their electronics can integrate the effects of these environmental factors and perform a calculation that computes the effect of these factors and produces a new, corrected, NMR frequency. This drives a frequency generator and tunable filters to create a "clean" sinusoid of the desired frequency. This frequency can be amplified and fed to a Detection Module.

The above mentioned Detection Module uses this amplified frequency to "stimulate" the target element while at the same time it receives a reflected signal from the desired element. Then it starts to go downhill from there.

The Detection Module described in the patent is a ... dowsing rod with an electrical connection. But this is so wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin.

The idea of pumping an amplified signal (ie. many volts) into the dowsing rod so it can somehow propagate this signal to a remote location where the element to be detected is located, while at the same time using the same dowsing rod to receive a reflected signal from the element, which if it existed would be fractions of microvolts in amplitude, is ludicrous at best. It is like standing next to Niagara falls and trying to listen to a sound of a needle dropping on the floor. One could say that perhaps they do a TDMX of the dowsing rod, but that is not discussed, and neither is the subject of quantifying the effect on the NMR frequency signal when the stimulus signal is suddenly removed. This is much like the signal decay time vs sampling delay time on a PI detector.

My disbelief compounded when it is claimed that this weak signal, again if it existed, would be sufficiently strong to cause the dowsing rod to deflect and point in the direction of the source of the reflected signal.

Does this work, or can this work? I'd bet money it doesn't