High impedence electrometer low cost

[Mike(Mont)]

I saw this article, looks easy enough to build. Don't know if it will work but I want to try to measure the atmospheric potential gradient. A lower potential gradient means better locating conditions, more air conductivity. So my thinking is to suspend an object totally insulated at one meter above the ground level. Then measure the voltage difference. I don't know, might need to suspend two objects one meter difference in elevation. http://amasci.com/electrom/sas51p1.html#Electro

[Mike(Mont)]

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html

This is a good.

[Geo]

Very good article Mike. Thanks

[Mike(Mont)]

Atmospheric ions are created from cosmic waves hitting the air molecules. However, during times of high solar activity, cosmic waves are blocked somewhat. Dell Winders talked about in the early years of the Molecular Frequency Discriminators that sometime in 1988 conditions turned bad and didn't recover for some time. Look at the lower graph and see where the cosmic waves were during that time 1988 - 1993 https://cosmicrays.oulu.fi

[Geo]

Yes i see...
As i see the periodicity, 2024 will be low.
I have try this method but there was many error signals maybe from storm at very long distance etc...

[Mike(Mont)]

Originally Posted by Mike(Mont)

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html

This is a good.

The lines are shown in figure 9-1 (b)

[Sneshko]

Originally Posted by Mike(Mont)

I saw this article, looks easy enough to build. Don't know if it will work but I want to try to measure the atmospheric potential gradient. A lower potential gradient means better locating conditions, more air conductivity. So my thinking is to suspend an object totally insulated at one meter above the ground level. Then measure the voltage difference. I don't know, might need to suspend two objects one meter difference in elevation. http://amasci.com/electrom/sas51p1.html#Electro

Very, very good dear Mike!
Thank you very much!
Regards!
Sneshko

[Mike(Mont)]

That IC has input of greater than 10 teraohms. Somewhere I saw if you suspend the object on top of a drinking glass you need to be sure the glass is completely clean--no mineral deposits/water spots on the glass or else it will bleed off the charge.

[Mike(Mont)]

My thinking is that a low atmospheric potential gradient means that the air is clean with lots of small, fast ions. A high potential gradient/high voltage has been known to overpower the magnetic field output of the locator. I don't know all the cuases but some main ones are dirty air, strong solar magnetic activity which inhibits cosmic waves from creating the flow of ions. So it is not totally due to air conductivity but this does help to keep the potential gradient low. So I was thinking some electrometer could be used to judge good locating conditions. What I am trying to say is a magnetic wave does not need good air conductivity, but the potential gradient is lower when there is good conductivity. And that comes from cosmic waves creating th ion flow towards earth. Clean air has more small/fast ions so that means more conductivity and that means lower potential gradient.

[Mike(Mont)]

The reason the magnetic wave sent out by the locator but fails to detect the target is the high potential gradient (electric field) perturbs the magnetic field inside a moleculeand prevents the protons from aligning all in unison and making a strong signal for the locator to detect. So this is how I think it works.

[Mike(Mont)]

So this begs the question: How do you stem the tide? How do you get a lower potential gradient? If the air is full of slow ions is it even possible to lower to potential gradient? I've seen corner posts people stick in the ground around the suspected target area. I guess sort of a discharge effect?