Underground Radio™

Underground Radio™ revolutionizes subterranean emergency rescue capabilities

Vital Alert Technologies Inc has signed two exclusive licence agreements with the Los Alamos National Laboratory for Underground Radio™, a technology that will provide Through-The-Earth Communication™, (two-way voice and text) for first responders, rescue and security teams, underground miners and the public in critical emergency situations around the world.

Underground Radio, originally developed by Los Alamos for the Department of Energy, is being commercialized by Vital Alert Technologies for use by emergency rescue crews in urban centres and by the mining industry.

“The new technology is a breakthrough in digital and wireless communications,” said Joe Miller, president and CEO of Vital Alert. “As a pre- and post- emergency warning, evacuation, and rescue communication system, it solves RF (radio frequency) radio failure problems and eliminates systems downtime complications in difficult environments such as subways, tunnels, skyscrapers, and mines. The new technology will also greatly enhance the ability of mining companies to protect their workers.”

Underground Radio is a through-the-earth communications mechanism that offers high-level security to critical government, industrial, military, commercial, and public infrastructure. It can also be used to respond to threats of terrorism and natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires. It uses very low frequency (VLF) electromagnetic radiation and digital audio compression technology to carry voice and text data. The VLF signals also can transmit tracking and location data for radio users in the case that they are unable to respond.

“This is a technical solution to the problem of voice communication in underground areas. It is also inexpensive to build,” said David Reagor, the principal investigator of the Los Alamos team who originally developed the technology.

Funding for Underground Radio came from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Industrial Technology and from Laboratory Directed Research and Development - a program in which a portion of the Laboratory’s operating budget is used to fund outstanding, emerging or innovative science and technology.


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Not really new.


Cortland
KA5S

 

Great news...I will put on my vest and start digging my antenna hole...please forward this to the station in Cutler, Maine.

 

Quite right, this is nothing new - the Heyphone, which was designed by fellow British amateur John Hey, has been around for years - and is considered the industry standard in underground emergency communications. Read all about it at http://bcra.org.uk/creg/heyphone/introduction.html

 

If this "Underground Radio" project actually ever shows up as a product, it might be useful for cave radio. For many years cavers have been using various LF and VLF frequencies (audio, 3kHz, 32kHz, 185kHz, 76kHz, 110kHz, 136kHz, etc) SSB and CW beacons, with loop antennas for radiolocation (DF) and wire antennas laid on the surface or attached to earthing rods for communications. Using low power on 185kHz SSB, the range is more than 2000ft through rock. More recently, digital texting with more sensitive data demodulation methods has enabled more compact and lower-powered comms.

In many caves, even 7MHz works very well for through-the-rock communications. I've had really good success using small 2Watt 7MHz SSB HTs into whip antennas or quarterwave wires laid in the cave passage or on the surface. With this, we have communicated from one cave to another cave about 1km away.

73---Bonnie KQ6XA

WEBSITE: EXPEDITIONCAVE.COM

 

Bonnie,

185Khz falls into the part 15 1750 meter band. The remainder of the VLF  frequencies listed do not have an amateur or part 15 allocation that I'm aware of.  Are you using part 15 for 185Khz? Are there other allocations specifically for what you're doing? Does that equipment have to be certified? Finally, if you're using part 15 for 185Khz, does the antenna limitation affect you very much?

tnx,
Daryl

 

Maybe they can do BPL through the ground and leave the airwaves for us hams. Gotta love that ionosphere.

73, JP, K8AG

 

Nothing so far is revolutionary in so called "underground radio"
When I was serving my apprenticeship as an electrician with the now defunct National Coal Board in the UK during the 1960's, they were ploughing millions of pounds into research for a radio system that would operated in coal mine roadways. All failed!!
The Mines Research unit at Bretby did finally come up with a VHF loop antenna system set up along main roads that worked "in a fashion" It has been improved upon to where it is "just satisfactory" and is in use world wide in coal mines.
As for a system that can reach depths of 3000 plus feet and through various strata, including carboniforous ironstone formations, I have my doubts any will be devised with technology we already have. Most of the worlds worked coal seams are well below 1000 feet, in Europe 3000 feet.
Communications underground in working mines are essential for production, being able to contact key personnel is critical, so if a system were feasable, I'm sure the multi national mining companies would have devised one years ago... Production =$$$$$$$$
I as an electrician and also a leading hand, I was many times out of communication range, ie not near telephones or intercom systems when I was needed urgently, which cost my employer downtime, a radio could have reduced some of that downtime.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

mainly for W1XZ :

Yeah, Cutler, ME, was, at least while I was working on submarine comms, the main transmitter for the "Broadcast" for the SSBN community. That was from 1980 to 1993. I worked on SSBN comms, most of it at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base (in Southeast Georgia). The "Broadcast", consisting of all of the administrative messages for the submarine community, would run continuously, and was transmitted in several modes and freqs, including RTTY and spread spectrum. As far as underground transmissions, I don't really think VLF is the way to go. What would really work would be ELF. While I was at Kings Bay, the Navy installed ELF gear on submarines and began a long term test/normal usage program. Now ELF (the Navy was using a freq of 60Hz) WILL go through the ground. For our test receiver shore side at Kings Bay, we actually were using a buried antenna. Perhaps the "underground radio" would be more reliable if they used ELF! I could go on all day about submarines (the best job I EVER had!), but I guess this is about all that directly concerns the topic of this thread.

Cheers and 73,

Ed, KK4ZY

 

Bury my HT with me. DEEP

 

Hi Daryl,

Yes, 185kHz is a standard cave radio channel in the "Lowfer" experimental band (USA). No ham license is required, and no equipment certification is required. Homebrew transmitters only.

The other frequencies I mentioned are similar "experimental" or amateur radio bands in other countries (we travel to various countries for cave exploration expeditions). The ELF frequencies (audio frequencies) are also available for unlicensed use.

There are 3 distinct ways we use through-the-rock radio for cave radio:

1. Cave-to-cave communications (between different passages in the cave, or between two different caves).
2. Cave-to-surface communications.
3. Cave-to-surface Radiolocation (RDF).

The 6 main types of 185kHz antennas we use are:
1. Hand-held collapsible portable multi-turn "magnetic" loop antenna for comms and RDF purposes (in cave and on surface).
2. 50ft wire with antenna tuner for ease of deployment in cave passages. (sometimes with a ground plate).
3. 50ft dipole with antenna tuner for more signal.
4. "Earth Dipole" made by inserting two ground rods in two separate points on the surface
5. "Earth Dipole" made by connecting wires to two ground conduction plates or capacitive plates.
6. Underground long wire antenna, generally deployed by the surface station down into the cave entrance and some distance in the passage. This is very useful for better reception of the underground radios, since it attenuates atmospheric/ionospheric noise.

There are some advantages to certain frequencies, but generally speaking, the bandwidth is very narrow for efficient magnetic loop antennas that are small enough to be carried and used while in motion. For SSB communications, an antenna bandwidth of at least 1.5kHz is needed. So, for SSB use with mag loops, it generally requires about 100kHz or higher.

Practically speaking, we have found that for dry limestone, marble, and volcanic rock caves, down to a rock depth of 500ft and lateral cave-cave distance to 1km, the use of lower HF and MF is more practical and efficient for cave radio communications than LF or ELF. This is partly due to the higher efficiency of the HF antennas.


Bonnie Crystal, KQ6XA
http://expeditioncave.com


.

 

Recent articles in Radcom outlining experiments in emergency communications in tunnels have concluded that ordinary 23 cm equipment worked best, so hold on to those UHF handies!

73

Brian G8ADD

 

Back in about 1975 I worked for Collin Radio.  Collins made several mine radio products.  One of these was a VLF "thru-the-earth" emergency comm system and a VLF miner locator system.  These were digital comm systems and certainly predated these new "gov lab developed" schemes.  Back then one had a hard time being ahead of Collins Radio.  They even made telephones for mines.  They also had mine monitoring products like O2 sensors, Methane sensors, airflow etc.

So I wonder how these chaps can license such technology?  Even the Collins/Rockwell patents have expired.   Regards Ed KE3D

 

I seem to recall a very simple construction article along these lines in Electronics Illustrated in 1971, I believe.

 

Hello.

For tunnels, 450 MHz works just fine.
For a cave, where the path is this twisted thing that is moist and sometimes under water the case is not so good for UHF.
I have a briefcase with several sections of ribbon cable wound inside.
I use diode band switching.
This covers the audio range to 500 KHz.
The cavers run 185 KHz, avalanche radios are on 456 KHz, the old marine distress is on 500 KHz.
The neat thing is that unless you know the briefcase is in fact a radio you would never know, even if you were to open the thing.