Electrical field measurement

[Elektrofeldmeter]

Hi,

I am an electronic enthousiastic and of course a Blitzortung fan. In order to complete my lightning detection sensoric I developed a field mill to detect the change of the electrical field (not the electric part of the electromagnetic wave but the quasi steady electric field) when a thunderstorm is over my garden. It took times and several trial and errors but at least I managed it. 

About the concept:
The device is working with USB (and can be used with a simple power bank) and generate a local wifi network so that one can monitor the results on the smartphone. Typically, you are on a hot spot far from home it is rainy and you stay in your car monitoring the change of electrical field.
   
If it is worthwhile I may invest time showing how I did it, it was a very nice first project and may be some other people may profit of it.

About the results:
There was a thunderstorm over Mainz (DE) during the evening of 21.04.2023.
   
   
and I could extract the following plot representing the charges and the discharges of the cloud above me. Very interesting was to observe a lightning and few milliseconds later on the Webserver of the field mill the drop down of the electrical field. It is really like a capacitor charing till reaching the electrical breakdown. Also very interesting is to observe how long it takes to converge back to a 0 V/m field even if no clouds were to be seen.

More on this picture here below:
   
   
   


All of this would not have been possible without the input from this website (Stefan Kneifel).

I hope that you find this as exciting as I found it. Do not hesitate to share your feelings and questions about it.

Regards

User: 1871
Detector: 2432

[nerd65]

Looking at the trace of that graph makes me think it's very likely that I have experienced the same phenomena using a different method.

Many years ago, in the 1980s I was very active of the HF bands.  On several occasions during afternoon thunderstorms I noticed that while monitoring on 21MHz there was a slow buzzing sound which built up in amplitude and buzz rate to be abruptly terminated with the typical sferic sound concurrent with a local lightning flash.  This was using a 1/4 wave vertical antenna in the centre of the corrugated iron roof of the house.  I still have audio recordings of this on a cassette tape somewhere in storage but no tape player.

Regards.

[Andrew.Instone-Cowie]

Nice project! You should publish it

[Vladimir]

Looking at the trace of that graph makes me think it's very likely that I have experienced the same phenomena using a different method.

Many years ago, in the 1980s I was very active of the HF bands.  On several occasions during afternoon thunderstorms I noticed that while monitoring on 21MHz there was a slow buzzing sound which built up in amplitude and buzz rate to be abruptly terminated with the typical sferic sound concurrent with a local lightning flash.  This was using a 1/4 wave vertical antenna in the centre of the corrugated iron roof of the house.  I still have audio recordings of this on a cassette tape somewhere in storage but no tape player.

Regards.

it should be crazy to go to digitizing studio and hear it again on a phone/pc =)

[Vladimir]

It's awesome! Pocket fluxmeter.

Would wonder to test it in a storm chasing =)

How much did all the components and material cost approximately? Know, just kinda these equipment are expensive, isn't it?