Quote:
Originally Posted by goldfinder
I have tried both. The metal box I find is better. The metal blocks extraneous radiation and protects the circuit which is sensitive to electrostatics. You can also put the base of the ES circuit, the ground, outside the box using it as an antenna ground plane. then make the antenna the collector for the ES.
Goldfinder
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Hi goldfinder,
It sound like you are using an electrostatic detector.
In this case, the materials and construction methods are very important.
It seems very few people have anything more than a basic idea of how electrostatics work in real world conditions.
With electrostatics we are working with electric fields that are basically static, capacitive signals, or could have some dynamic components which cause an anomaly where you hunt for treasure.
But if you put the same electrostatic circuit in several different enclosures with different antenna designs, you will find each of them responds differently to electric field anomalies.
I would also think that an electrostatic detector would work better with a metal box.
However, if it is a modified detector which uses an RF tuner, then the tiny RF anomalies will be strongly influenced by different box materials.
More importantly, the receiver antenna design will be more important than an electrostatic detector antenna is.
For an VLF tuner, the enclosure and the materials near the coil will have a lot to do with the performance of the coil.
Even passive conductors nearby will influence the reception of signals.
I would think in the cases of VLF receivers and transmitters, the antennas are best kept separated from the rest of the circuitry, much as we see in commercial radio installations where the transmitter parts are kept away from the antenna where possible.
We also see in some of the portable hand-held commercial transceivers that there are parts of the circuit which are shielded with metal foils to keep external energies from interfering with small signals.
Often we see even transceivers that are in metal boxes, which helps to keep stray energies from causing interference in the circuits.
But in the case of treasure locator LRLs, there may be times when the designer wants stray signals to impinge on the circuits inside the box.
However, I doubt any LRL experimenters will take these precautions except for a few who have some idea of how these signals work.
Best wishes,
J_P