The RF-Seismograph measures massive radio blackout during California earthquakes

Hi Everybody;

A massive shortwave radio blackout continues to disrupt the Pacific West of America! It is not caused by the sun (the sun is quiet), but the field lines of the quakes themselves, that still shake California . The disruption started at around 16:00 UTC and is still continuing. As of this point there were more than 84 aftershocks!

If you want to receive these earthquakes reports on a regular bases please join the MDSR.io group.

Here is the location: All the quakes have been located in a 10 km2 area and keep continuing to shake California, more than 84 quakes in the past 6 h!


The measurement of the RF-Seismograph: total radio blackout except for 20 m which is severely attenuated at this moment. We do not have any estimates when it will stop.
A quick glossary of how to read the graph below.

All the best and 73;



Alex - VE7DXW

 

Maybe people will pay attention to the premise and theory, poo pooed on this very website earlier. Such as here - https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?th...tect-earthquakes-off-vancouver-island.655938/

I think you're on to something, even if others aren't as far sighted about it.

 

As I and others have posted previously, this is interesting but meaningless for prediction unless you also account for the times when radio was attenuated without an earthquake.

First, you need to mathematically define what you consider to be a quake precursor signal in your data, then find ALL such events in your data going back years and correlate to earthquake activity nearby, if any. If you really have found a quake precursor signal, it will stand out with a high correlation value. (There are more sophisticated statistical methods to use as well, and I have previously suggested free statistical tools which are available.)

So far all you have shown us are post hoc analyses, which means you observe a quake, then go find an ionospheric precursor signal in your data. This is incorrect and misleading. I can do the same with almost any supposed precursor, for example, just before this quake my dog barked. Does that mean she can predict earthquakes? No, because she also barks at many unrelated times and analysis of all the times she barks would show a very low correlation with earthquakes.

 

We came to this conclusion after looking at 4 years worth of background noise data and 171 M6+ quakes. Here are the correlations for 2017 and 2018. We found that 72% of the quakes had a precursor noise that was detectable on 80 m!

Access to Study for 2017, 2018 (2019 is part of 2018):

http://www3.telus.net/public/bc237/MDSR/Matches-RF-Seismograph and Seismic data for 2017.pdf

http://www3.telus.net/public/bc237/MDSR/Earthquakes visible with RF-Seismograph 2018.pdf

 

Those are just a lot of graphs, no correlation analysis. Those events might be related, or they might not, just like my dog barking.

I see no definition of what you consider to be a precursor which could be mathematically correlated to anything, it appears that you just eyeball the graphs.

Saying that 72% of quakes had an ionospheric precursor is post hoc analysis again. You need to be able to state the converse, which is that a large percentage of all ionospheric events (by your definition, which is absent) had subsequent earthquakes. The two are NOT the same.

You need to familiarize yourself with basic experimental and statistical analysis of data, and how to draw valid inferences and conclusions from it.

 

Reference article by VE7DXW, The Canadian Amateur, May/June 2019, pg. 32 The issue of strange lights appearing during quakes has been attributed to piezo-electric effects and if there is enough generated to create visual effects, who knows what else?

 

Yes, strange things have been anecdotally observed in association with earthquakes, and I have no doubt that many are true. For example, going back to antiquity animals have sometimes exhibited unusual behavior immediately before humans sensed an earthquake.

The question is whether such observations have any predictive value. Animals can and do act “strangely” for a number of causes. Likewise the ionosphere is constantly changing for reasons having nothing to do with earthquakes, so that must be accounted for and factored out in any serious claim of a relationship to earthquakes.

 

Most RF blackouts were due to power fails. Near as I can tell. Hard to see from here.

I hope everyone is OK.

 

Interesting thought, but I do not believe that the power outages are wide spread. Does anyone know exactly how many households are without power?

 

We make the data available to everyone. Are you interested in doing the analysis? We are glad to help!

 

Or...The 'blackout" could be due to the grilling of hotdogs and opening of containers of potato salad. I think I'm on to something here. Hmmm.

 

As I'm sure you're aware, there are around 100-150 M6+ quakes per year. So how did you select the 171 quakes to study over four years? A four year period ought to have 500 or so M6+ quakes. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/browse/stats.php

Stating the percentage of quakes with "precursor noise" is meaningless without also stating the percentage of non-quakes that had "precursor noise". Is the "precursor noise" like the legendary economist who found an indicator that predicted twenty-five of the last three recessions?

You may be onto something, but it's not clear from the evidence and explanation shown.

 

Was there an HF blackout in SoCal and the surrounding area? You would think that would be easy enough to verify here on QRZ.

 

The 4 Year Propagation vs. Earthquake Study
Why is it so difficult to prove that earthquakes have electromagnetic properties?
In previous studies the measurements were done on location, mostly using portable VHF radios with small antennas, and only one specific quake was measured at a time. This makes it very hard to ‘catch the quake in the act’. It is also very dangerous and time consuming. If one stands right in the field dome and transmits VHF radio waves, they are at a steep angle to the field lines. The radio waves also penetrate the ionosphere perpendicularly. The ionosphere refracts VHF very poorly, making measurements difficult. In order to actually measure the effect on propagation with the RF-Seismograph, one has to be at least 500 km away from the quake and HF frequencies have to be used. This is necessary because we want to measure the radio signals that bounce back from the disturbed ionosphere.


Why is this study different?
Once we realized the very chaotic nature of earthquakes and linked this to the RF noise they generate (electromagnetic white wideband noise, from 0.0044 Hz into the VHF range), we understood why it is possible to study almost all earthquakes from one location (besides triangulation). By using HF and considering the fact that earthquakes can create RF signals that have several megawatts of power output (possible even more), they are easy to pick up on 80 m. By correlating the time of the quake with the spike on 80 m we can also verify the changes in propagation by the field lines as measured by the RF-Seismograph! The RF-Seismograph combines both events in one graph for easy verification.

• In all, 171 earthquakes were studied: All M6+ events from the beginning of our recording (Aug 2016) to today. Events were provided by USGS, and the quality of the data is high.

• 961 days of recorded data with 171 M6+ quakes amount to one major quake every 5.6 days. Approximately 17.3% of background noise is affected by these strong events. Since we only looked at 6+ events, we can conclude that a lot of the background noise we monitor is also created by smaller seismic events (and there are a lot more of these). If one looks at smaller quakes the (<M3.0) the earth really never stops shaking. There is a lot of energy even in small quakes and they are the major source of the rumble one hears when a HF rig is set to 160m or 80m. It would be interesting to take this experiment to a different planet or moon and see if this is actually the case.

• Only 15 quakes did not have RF noise associated with them.

• 1 day out of 961 was not recoverable due to data loss.

• In 26 cases the time of the disturbance did not match the time stated in the USGS report.

• In 122 quakes (72%) we were able to see a noise increase in the 80 m band either before, after and before and after the quake released. The “before and after” is the most common one. More analysis is needed.

• Introduction and Study of Earthquakes (also see also ref. at the end)

http://www3.telus.net/public/bc237/MDSR/IntroductionRF-SeismographandEarthqakes.pdf

• The study is still continuing and we need your help to set up more monitoring stations.