Today we find out if a green stalk of Iowa corn has enough conductance to radiate a 5w QRP signal.. This is prime time to find out as the corn is at it's maximum height and pushing a lot of water thru the plant. In theory, it all sounds like it should work.. but lets go find out...
This is amusing but by no means foolish. However, its not really the water that is the conductor--its the 'sap'organics, and minerals therein, which give the conductance. Likely the coax was radiating too. Frankly, given the dry conditions in much of the country, I am tickled that the corn is HIGH!
In 1904 the US Army Signal Corps used trees as antennas to communicate across the Atlantic Ocean. In the Vietnam conflict, SOF teams used trees as antennas. It would seem that corn is the new area for experimention. Fun video.
Well that is not so unusual as I saw them using Odd Looking Palm Trees for Cell Phone Towers in Las Vegas!! Hi HI Hi!! And our MARS Station, AB8AAE participated in that using trees for antennas test when I was in Viet Nam. And it really worked!!! Palm Trees and Rubber Plant Trees worked the best!!
It will probably work as well or better than some of the "antennas" that are currently popular. It's very difficult to build a perfect dummy load that doesn't leak some RF.
What a fun and humorous thing to do! It gives a whole new meaning to the expression "Antenna farm". On a more technical note, it would have been good to have a "normal" antenna of some sort along for comparison as what "could" have been happening was that the antenna was just the connecting coax and the corn stalk was simply acting as a resistor on the end of the coax to terminate it. A good example of why an ATU is not an ATU in this case - it's an AMU or ACU (Antenna Matching or Coupling Unit). Great fun though! 73 Ed.
We G90 owners know that its tuner can load up a wet noodle, so a cornstalk is just another non-resonant antenna! Seriously, it would be interesting to see how well it would work, for instance, using a stalk still in the ground (a corn ground plane?).
I love the video! And your farm is beautiful I cannot help but wonder though if you were actually transmitting along the the radials instead of the cornstalk. So, for further testing of the corntenna, I would love to see cornstalks used as radials! Anyway, a really fun idea!! Mindy
It took a long time, but I finally got that patch antenna built! Now I need to get that beam planted!
