Seeing radio waves with a light bulb

Take several fluorescent tube or spiral (energy saver) lights of different colors and actually see the gasses inside them dance around in ring like patterns with the modulation of an AM TX. Quite a light show!

Or how about Dancing with the Juice.

RFB

That sounds cool.. I may experiment with that after I move the studio to location.. The Rangemasters whip will be in a visible location, I wonder if some colored fluorescents tubes positioned around it would put up enough of a show at night to be attractive?...

But wait a sec.. I'm not sure at this point if I'll be broadcasting at night or not, it all depends on what the usable range of the signal will be at night.

Still, it's a neat thought.

I wonder if some colored fluorescents tubes positioned around it would put up enough of a show at night to be attractive?

Well at 100mW, the lights may not illuminate due to the weak field strength of the signal. You might try battery powered "camping" fluorescent bulbs as those are more sensitive. Though you wont find any with colors, you can use clear colored plastic sheeting wrapped around them to give off the color. The light tubes will probably have to be placed very close to the antenna to illuminate enough for visibility. And of course you will have to re-peak the tuning when taking something near the radiating element.

Another neat little project I built a few Christmas seasons ago was building an antenna that was chopped into very short sections and in between each section was a tiny grain of wheat light bulb, each of a different color with the top bulb being white. Each section was about 4 inches and all of the sections of 1/2 inch ID copper pipe were slipped onto a wood rod just big enough to allow those copper sections to slide onto and secured with small wood screws. The gap between each section was about 1/4 inch and the bulb in between. The lights were arranged in a spiral pattern as they went up the antenna for effect. Due to the nature of how the RF signal emits off the short antenna, the lights did not illuminate evenly, so I had to add a capacitive hat at the top. Yes..this did increase the total length a bit beyond the 3 meter rule...but hey..it was Christmas and I needed something for outside Christmas decoration! I called it "The Poor Man's Outside Christmas Stick" 🙂

RFB

RFBurns, I would think you could design a stick that has red lights so you would have FAA lighting for low aircraft.

Just last week I read somewhere that the security industry had invented little flying spy cameras that buzz around like hummingbirds. Maybe your lighting could keep those little hummer-cams from crashing.

Maybe your lighting could keep those little hummer-cams from crashing.

Well....I can see helping out the RC airplane enthusiasts but government spy bees and birds....I would set up a bug zapper! 😀

RFB

The whips are cool, but they're only available in 4 or 6 foot lengths..
http://www.safeglowhips.com/

I have sent an e-mail to the glow stick antenna people and told them that part 15 needs a 3-meter stick, and I directed them here to this website.

Now we sit back and say our prayers with or without a transmitter.

So did I! right after I posted that link!

I'm guessing an 102" might be a little pricey though, since their 6 foot whips are $100. They are pretty cool though.

They would perform just as well as a standard whip wouldn't they?

This discussion of lit up sticks gives me two thoughts and there will be more.

One, I have (had, and am re-building) a bamboo tower out front with a 10-foot un-lit stick, but from the winter solstice, December 21, when the darkness is long, I have had a separate pole with three blue xmas tiny lights which look neat glowing in the blackness.

Now, with the design expressed earlier, perhaps the lights can become part of the antenna.

Two, if the glowing stick company does produce a 10-foot glow rod antenna, we will constantly be looking out the window all night to admire it. Talk about enjoying low power life!

I wanted to try this too. All I wanted
was a red LED on top of the 1690/1700
"3 meter or less" stick.

I never figured out how to do it through.

And since my transmitting range was good
at the time, I didn't want to mess it up by
putting a light on top of the antenna.

But I still want to try it some time.

25 years ago, a friend of mine had a longwave
beacon (Part 15, 160-190 kHz.) With the legal
limits - 1 watt RF to the final and a 50 foot
stick, he was able to light a neon bulb just by
touching it to the antenna. He had a gigantic
ground system. The set-up was at an old dark
dead broadcast tower! The transmitting mode
was just cw. No voice, or anything like that.
And he didn't use the tower - he had a fifty foot
pole rigged up. Pretty cool!

Best Wishes,
Bruce, MICRO1690/1700

P.S. By the way, RF Burns - your lit
Christmas antenna is amazing!

I'm thinking, if you can see the glow, you can hear our station.

Wouldn't the visible range of the glow be about the same as the RF signal?

ISN'T IT TRUE that 6 + 4 = 10? So why not STACK the two available glow rods and think how cool THAT would look.

NEXT, and this is the dream portion, imagine stacking two 6-foot glowers. Hmm? Neat? Cool?

It is still legal to dream about going over the speed limit, you just can't do it while awake.

Oh yeah Carl?

The dream police, they live inside of my head
The dream police, they come to me in my bed
The dream police, they're coming to arrest me, oh, no..
--Cheap Trick

well I read up on those glowing poles and
read that they are visible two miles away!

the darned glow antenna goes farther than the signal!

Time to starting using Morse code transmissions with the lighted pole!

I wonder how hard it
would be to tap out "Come Together" by the Beatles