Zahori

[J_Player]

J_Player
....big problem is don’t have experimental gold
Target....

What is your opinion about moving conductive air over ground ?
I heard travel from south to north ,
Best regards.

Hi Aft,
A gold target is easy. You can use any piece of gold jewelry and bury it. Or you can bury an old circuit board or component that has gold plating on the conductors. This will be more than enough to make as many ions as a solid gold item for test purposes. If you want to make gold ions, you can put the gold plated item into a dish with some aqua regia, or some cyanide solution to dissolve it. Then you will have a dish of gold ions that you can dump into a bucket of soil. Then you can stand above this bucket of soil with gold ions and check to see if there are any gold ions floating in the air. You could also check the theory for other buried metals. It is easy to bury copper, silver, lead, iron, zinc and any other metal you can find (These can be dissolved with less dangerous chemicals like muriatic acid and suphuric acid). Then measure the air above the buried metal to see if you can find some metal ions floating above them. If you know where there is a buried pipe, then you already have a long time buried metal place to test.

My understanding is that the south to north detection is related to the magnetic field of the earth, not the conductivity of the air. For example, a compass will respond to a magnetic field. But the compass does not respond to the conductivity of the air. In the case of an electric charge detector that is being used to check the charge in the air, more conductive air is air which has higher humidity. I would expect that the current flow leaking from the earth to the atmosphere is more in areas of high humidity than dry areas. All this can change in weather systems where the local air charge can change to become more or less, or even reversed for short times. The only reason I would think south and north has some influence on air conductivity is if you are in an area where the wind currents travel from south to north to blow in air that has a different conductivity. I know of no magnetic component that can be measured when checking the electric charge of normal air, no matter what its conductivity is. Possibly in rare circumstances like during a storm, the air could be come much more conductive in certain paths and directions. This is generally what happens when lightning strikes. I doubt most treasure hunters would go hunting during these times, so I figure they are not seen much when treasure hunting.

Best wishes,
J_P

[Rudy]

Hi Rudy,

You are correct. An instrument which stimulates the target area will necessarily work diffrently than a passive instrument which measures only natural state signals. As an example, a conventional metal detector measures signals that don't exist naturally in any measureable amound from the buried metal. A passive detector in the case of buried metal is looking for a much smaller signal which is more likely to be buried in noise, and more difficult to find. This means you would need to make an exhaustive search to find the most likely kind of signal that will be strong enough to measure.

The most likely candidate for a passive signal seems to be the atmospheric air charge. Everything else is tiny in comparison. As far as a large electric field gradient, this is the standard gradient in the air, driven by solar wind at the ionosphere. It varies from day to night, and from season to season, and even has local variations. But it usually falls in the range of 100-200 volts per meter altitude in the vicinity of the earth surface. See here for my previous discussion of this: http://www.geotech1.com/forums/showt...688#post126688

The current leaking into the air is typically around 11.76 nA leaking from any 1 sq meter of earth surface on average. Of course we can't measure this current with any normal kind of milliammeter, but we can expect it will change to maybe double if the conductivity of the ground is caused to change to double the amount in found neighboring areas. The theory is that chemical reactions of corroding buried metals will change the conductivity of the ground to become higher than ground with no chemical activity involving metal corrosion. When this happens, we could expect the 100 v/meter gradient to be reduced in this local area of higher ground conductivity and higher current leaking into the air. This reduced voltage gradient should be easier to measure because it is in a range where we have instruments that can measure it.

The only problem I have with this theory is I haven't seen any field data to support it. It would be interesting to see some actual tests that show the field gradient over uniform ground that has places where a conductivity/resistivity anomaly is created in the soil. In a test condition, the conductive soil area can be made by simply pouring water into a small hole and giving it time to absorb into the soil. Or maybe by driving a long metal rod into the ground to conduct to the lower layers, then pouring a bucket of water on the top surface.

I am suspecting that if a zahori is very sensitive to electric field variations it will detect this variation in gradient. Of course, the same variation in gradient could be caused by a damp spot in the soil where an animal recently visited. This could result in finding a questionable treasure.

Best wishes,
J_P

Hmm, interesting. I would surmise that during normal weather (not a thunder storm), the source resistance for this 200V/m electric field must be very high since the air molecules are mostly not ionized and the air therefore acts as a dielectric medium.

The presence of the human hunter must then have a significant effect on the electric field in his immediate surrounding, given his relatively low resistance, specially on a hot humid day. One can model the human resistance roughly as an outer resistance and an internal body resistance, where the skin resistance is of the order of 2,000Ω or less if sweaty, and the internal body resistance on the order of 500Ω. The resistance to ground (forgetting shoes for the moment) is then:

Rbody = Rskin(in) + Rinternal + Rskin(out)

Since we get from the external skin to the lower resistance internal organs and back to the external skin.

So Rbody ~4.5 KΩ maybe less if sweaty.

Assuming a 2 meter height for the human, We would effectively have 400 V from head to feet and Ohm's law would say that we'd have almost 90 mA of current flowing through us, a lethal amount.

Of course, we won't die because the source impedance behind that electric field is so high that it can't provide that kind of current. But, wouldn't our mere presence be sufficient to collapse that electric field in our vicinity?

[J_Player]

Hmm, interesting. I would surmise that during normal weather (not a thunder storm), the source resistance for this 200V/m electric field must be very high since the air molecules are mostly not ionized and the air therefore acts as a dielectric medium.

The presence of the human hunter must then have a significant effect on the electric field in his immediate surrounding, given his relatively low resistance, specially on a hot humid day. One can model the human resistance roughly as an outer resistance and an internal body resistance, where the skin resistance is of the order of 2,000Ω or less if sweaty, and the internal body resistance on the order of 500Ω. The resistance to ground (forgetting shoes for the moment) is then:

Rbody = Rskin(in) + Rinternal + Rskin(out)

Since we get from the external skin to the lower resistance internal organs and back to the external skin.

So Rbody ~4.5 KΩ maybe less if sweaty.

Assuming a 2 meter height for the human, We would effectively have 400 V from head to feet and Ohm's law would say that we'd have almost 90 mA of current flowing through us, a lethal amount.

Of course, we won't die because the source impedance behind that electric field is so high that it can't provide that kind of current. But, wouldn't our mere presence be sufficient to collapse that electric field in our vicinity?

Hi Rudy,
Yes the air is considered one of the best insulators and a dielectric which basically makes the earth a capacitor with an opposite pole at the ionosphere.
When we consider the resistance of a person internally and externally, and even the resistance of his shoes, this resistance becomes a moot point because of the tiny amount of current that is flowing through the resistance of the air. The amount of current which normally leaks through the air is only around in the area he occupies is around 1 nA, which would quicly move from the ground through a person;s body before it met any noticable resistance that could develop a potential in his body. At this current level, the person (including most ordinary shoes he would be wearing) basically acts like a conductor, which raises the ground potential to his level. This is especially true on humid days. If we are talking about a very dry day where a person walks across a carpet to generate a sizable charge, then he could build up thousands of volts. A lot more than 1 nA will be leaking from him into the atmosphere in this condition. But without generating a charge by this method, only a tiny trickle of 1 nA will charge a person, that would require better insulating value than the air to keep from seeing him as a conductor and preferred path to the ground. Also consider that simply by being there, the person may double or triple the leakage current to 2-3nA in the surface area he occupies. However, in this same area, he has caused the voltage gradient to make an enormous anomaly where it dropped from 200v to 0v! ... Why it is better to measure anomalies in the voltage gradient.

Another way of looking at it is a person standing on the ground (or plant, or any other partially conductive object) will raise the ground potential from the ground up to the level of their body. In essence, a person will distort the ground potential by simply being there. By standing on the ground, we have created the effect of a small hill shape on the ground to raise the ground potential to a higher altitude. Thus, we are not standing in a 100-200 volt/meter gradient because our body caused the gradient to drop much lower, nearly to ground potential along the full height of our body. This may be easier to understand when you consider a vertical cliff maybe 100 meters tall. We will se ground potential at its base and at the top, as well as all along the face of this cliff. We can expect the vertical voltage gradient of 100-200 volts/meter to be distorted to a horizontal gradient when measuring it at the face of the cliff. This distortion will be expected to gradually return to the normal vertical gradient as we move away from the cliff.
You can see an illustration of this from the Dr. Feynman's book of his physics lectures Vol 2 chapter 9 -- online copy of this page here: http://student.fizika.org/~jsisko/Kn...Atmosphere.pdf
Anything on the ground is basically a lightning rod/grounding rod unless it's resistance is somewhere close to the resistance of the air. And this is a fortunate state of affairs because it prevents people from inadvertently dying due to electric shock from accumulated atmospheric charge in non-storm conditions.

But as a final thought, When we consider the big influence of everything from trees, people, hills, wild animals, lakes and streams in influencing the atmospheric voltage gradient, it seems more likely that a more conductive area of ground could have a significant effect on the gradient.

Best wishes,
J_P

[Rudy]

Hi Rudy,
Yes the air is considered one of the best insulators and a dielectric which basically makes the earth a capacitor with an opposite pole at the ionosphere.
When we consider the resistance of a person internally and externally, and even the resistance of his shoes, this resistance becomes a moot point because of the tiny amount of current that is flowing through the resistance of the air. The amount of current which normally leaks through the air is only around in the area he occupies is around 1 nA, which would quicly move from the ground through a person;s body before it met any noticable resistance that could develop a potential in his body. At this current level, the person (including most ordinary shoes he would be wearing) basically acts like a conductor, which raises the ground potential to his level. This is especially true on humid days. If we are talking about a very dry day where a person walks across a carpet to generate a sizable charge, then he could build up thousands of volts. A lot more than 1 nA will be leaking from him into the atmosphere in this condition. But without generating a charge by this method, only a tiny trickle of 1 nA will charge a person, that would require better insulating value than the air to keep from seeing him as a conductor and preferred path to the ground. Also consider that simply by being there, the person may double or triple the leakage current to 2-3nA in the surface area he occupies. However, in this same area, he has caused the voltage gradient to make an enormous anomaly where it dropped from 200v to 0v! ... Why it is better to measure anomalies in the voltage gradient.

Another way of looking at it is a person standing on the ground (or plant, or any other partially conductive object) will raise the ground potential from the ground up to the level of their body. In essence, a person will distort the ground potential by simply being there. By standing on the ground, we have created the effect of a small hill shape on the ground to raise the ground potential to a higher altitude. Thus, we are not standing in a 100-200 volt/meter gradient because our body caused the gradient to drop much lower, nearly to ground potential along the full height of our body. This may be easier to understand when you consider a vertical cliff maybe 100 meters tall. We will se ground potential at its base and at the top, as well as all along the face of this cliff. We can expect the vertical voltage gradient of 100-200 volts/meter to be distorted to a horizontal gradient when measuring it at the face of the cliff. This distortion will be expected to gradually return to the normal vertical gradient as we move away from the cliff.
You can see an illustration of this from the Dr. Feynman's book of his physics lectures Vol 2 chapter 9 -- online copy of this page here: http://student.fizika.org/~jsisko/Kn...Atmosphere.pdf
Anything on the ground is basically a lightning rod/grounding rod unless it's resistance is somewhere close to the resistance of the air. And this is a fortunate state of affairs because it prevents people from inadvertently dying due to electric shock from accumulated atmospheric charge in non-storm conditions.

But as a final thought, When we consider the big influence of everything from trees, people, hills, wild animals, lakes and streams in influencing the atmospheric voltage gradient, it seems more likely that a more conductive area of ground could have a significant effect on the gradient.

Best wishes,
J_P

Hi JP,

Thanks, I think you said what I was trying to say much better. The implication is that a person standing in the field holding an electric field meter of some kind, is dramatically distorting the field the meter is reading and the distortion moves with the man/meter apparatus wherever they go. Hmm.

BTW: I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Feynman back in the late sixties when he paid a visit to the company I was then working at. I was most impressed with his wit and demeanor.

[J_Player]

Hi JP,

Thanks, I think you said what I was trying to say much better. The implication is that a person standing in the field holding an electric field meter of some kind, is dramatically distorting the field the meter is reading and the distortion moves with the man/meter apparatus wherever they go. Hmm.

BTW: I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Feynman back in the late sixties when he paid a visit to the company I was then working at. I was most impressed with his wit and demeanor.

Ya he taught classes in Pasadena about real science, not a bunch of made up stuff that seemed like it might be true.

About the electric field meter... some LRL enthusiasts such as Esteban say it is important to wear cotton clothing when using an LRL that works by sensing faint electric fields. This is so as not to develop a charge which could be seen as noise to a sensitive meter. Also, the typical LRL is held out in front of you hopefully at the periphery of whatever you are doing to the field. The presumption is the meter is looking through a fairly constant window of a gradient (your body gradient) to the distant charge anomalies that they try to detect. As long as your body charge gradient is not varying, it should not skew the reading, but simply raise the noise floor a little. We know a zahori detects something because it picks up electric power transmission lines from a very large distance. In the best of conditions, maybe it can detect nearby anomalies in the space charge. What I keep thinking is the influence of variations in the ground water will have a larger influence on the charge anomalies than traces of treasure ionization in the soil. This is why I think it is more suited to finding water.

Best wishes,
J_P

[Rudy]

Ya he taught classes in Pasadena about real science, not a bunch of made up stuff that seemed like it might be true.

About the electric field meter... some LRL enthusiasts such as Esteban say it is important to wear cotton clothing when using an LRL that works by sensing faint electric fields. This is so as not to develop a charge which could be seen as noise to a sensitive meter. Also, the typical LRL is held out in front of you hopefully at the periphery of whatever you are doing to the field. The presumption is the meter is looking through a fairly constant window of a gradient (your body gradient) to the distant charge anomalies that they try to detect. As long as your body charge gradient is not varying, it should not skew the reading, but simply raise the noise floor a little. We know a zahori detects something because it picks up electric power transmission lines from a very large distance. In the best of conditions, maybe it can detect nearby anomalies in the space charge. What I keep thinking is the influence of variations in the ground water will have a larger influence on the charge anomalies than traces of treasure ionization in the soil. This is why I think it is more suited to finding water.

Best wishes,
J_P

The power line electric fields are time varying, not static. Maybe that is why it is picking them up, dE/dt.

[J_Player]

The power line electric fields are time varying, not static. Maybe that is why it is picking them up, dE/dt.

Yes,

About that power line thing.... The original circuit for the zahori had a 4066 switch that was used as an input signal chopper set to 60 hz or to 50 Hz in Europe to filter out the power lines so you could concentrate on earth signals (es1, es2, es3 and 7555 below). It seemed a novel way to filter in a pseudo-digital manner, which also reset the input by unloading it, then sending a fresh ambient signal at each cycle. I suppose this kept the antenna from becoming overloaded with air charges. You could also tune this 50/60 hz for a beat frequency and concievably operate it as a BFO to see if any local anomalies will cause the internal clock to drift and make an audible sound. The original article published with the zahori circuit described it as an "electronic water witch". And it seems like it may actually work for that purpose, considering the known facts about local atmospheric field anomalies. Also note an early antenna mod changed to three extra long antennas which are extended to protrude nearly 3 meters beyond the person holding it when you consider his arm as part of the assembly. This was probably intended to move the sensor part away from the field distortions caused by the user.

But most zahori builders removed this line-power filter function from thier zahori when they bagan hacking it. Today's versions are simply FET charge detectors which may have various antenna schemes to replace the original, and small pieces of gold soldered into the antenna -- a strange arrangement. But hey, if someone finds treasure with it, why not? It's not like they paid 5000 eu for these experimental LRLs.

What most experimenter never noticed about the original design is it contains an interesting feature which could be exploited. Suppose you were to synchronize the chopper circuit with the local power line fields, using a feedback loop or a PLL to track the line frequency. You now have essentially a signal sync circuit similar to an oscilloscope trigger. You can examine a repeating wave for an anomaly when pointing the zahori in a particular direction. If you have instruments available to examine the input signal, you can also add some circuits to further filter known repeaitng noise, and leave you with a cleaner earth signal. From here, you can look to see if you can find any "treasure signal" that comes when you pointi to long-time buried gold, for example. Your additional filtering could easily take adjustable time duration slices of each repeating 50/60 Hz wave to examine a part where you found something interesting. This could be a worthwhile electronic adventure if the buried treasure is somehow stimulated by man-made noise to emit a signal that can be detected. If the theories of LRL enthusuasts are correct, then this would be a good way to isolate this elusive gold signal and build a magic zahori to find only gold at long range. If it didn't work, then maybe it would still be good to tell when you are close to ground water that is near the surface.

Best wishes,
J_P

[mehdi]

Hi
report of some field test for mini zahori!:
i use AL wire as antenna, not big difrence in performance;
i removed the brass sample, and L2, now it work better than before!
yesterday it can detect a hole at about 1meter underground at distance of about 2-3 meter but there was not treasure.

mehdi

[Morgan]

Zahori Brother

Hi
report of some field test for mini zahori!:
i use AL wire as antenna, not big difrence in performance;
i removed the brass sample, and L2, now it work better than before!
yesterday it can detect a hole at about 1meter underground at distance of about 2-3 meter but there was not treasure.

mehdi

So,now it work worse than before,becouse before you found one coin and now with modifications you found one empty hole...

[nelson]

Hi Mehdi and all friends.
Last weekend i made a short test with mini zahorie. The detector mades a tac tac tac on one direction, so i tryied to pinpoint the signal that was a small area of about 50 by 50 centimiters. Then i took my metal detector and yes, it detected a signal, that after i dig it was just a small aluminium foil.
Perhaps it wasn´t a treasure, but i must said that for me it worked in detecting that aluminium foil at a distance of 1 meter. I thing this is a good startting point at least for me.
I m waitting for this weekend to try it again.
Regards
Nelson

Hi
report of some field test for mini zahori!:
i use AL wire as antenna, not big difrence in performance;
i removed the brass sample, and L2, now it work better than before!
yesterday it can detect a hole at about 1meter underground at distance of about 2-3 meter but there was not treasure.

mehdi

[Qiaozhi]

Hi Mehdi and all friends.
Last weekend i made a short test with mini zahorie. The detector mades a tac tac tac on one direction, so i tryied to pinpoint the signal that was a small area of about 50 by 50 centimiters. Then i took my metal detector and yes, it detected a signal, that after i dig it was just a small aluminium foil.
Perhaps it wasn´t a treasure, but i must said that for me it worked in detecting that aluminium foil at a distance of 1 meter. I thing this is a good startting point at least for me.
I m waitting for this weekend to try it again.
Regards
Nelson

A suggestion for next time:
After digging the target found with the metal detector, recheck the area again with the Zahori to see if the signal is still there or if it has disappeared.
Also, check the rest of the site with the metal detector. The results of these tests will no doubt be most illuminating.

[aft_72005]

A suggestion for next time:
After digging the target found with the metal detector, recheck the area again with the Zahori to see if the signal is still there or if it has disappeared.
Also, check the rest of the site with the metal detector. The results of these tests will no doubt be most illuminating.

Hi to all
If for first time detection done with zahori ,then check aria with metal detector,
Using again zahori at seem area after metal detector will be without result,
Because metal detector transmitter section destroyed phenomenon energy!!!!!!
Best regards.

[aft_72005]

Hi
report of some field test for mini zahori!:
i use AL wire as antenna, not big difrence in performance;
i removed the brass sample, and L2, now it work better than before!
yesterday it can detect a hole at about 1meter underground at distance of about 2-3 meter but there was not treasure.

mehdi

Hi mehdi
Detected hole!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe Your zahori so sensitive now , in this condition you have noise from unwanted Subject

[J_Player]

Hi to all
If for first time detection done with zahori ,then check aria with metal detector,
Using again zahori at seem area after metal detector will be without result,
Because metal detector transmitter section destroyed phenomenon energy!!!!!!
Best regards.

Hi Aft,

Nobody has ever established that a phenomenon has energy.
This is simply a legend experimenters began to believe when they hear stories of LRLs beeping in the direction of buried metal.
We also see the geologist VLF receivers make different strength readings when they move them to different places at the ground surface.
Some of these changes can also be caused by metal things buried for a long time.
But we know they are not measuring energy coming from the metal of a phenomenon.
They are measuring how much RF is absorbed into the ground, which tells them variations in the ground conductivity.

Geologists also can detect metal particles in the ground by using induced polarization and spectral induced polarization to find various different metals buried for a long time. They know for certain they are not measuring any energy emitted from buried metal when using these methods. They know for certain they are measuring properties of the metal and the ground it is buried in, not energy emitted from the metal or any energy-emitting phenomenon.

When we hear a signal coming from a static charge detector, we have no way to know if the charge variation we are measuring was caused by energy emitted, or a static charge accumulated, or a cloud of charged particles in the air near where the antenna is held. If we find buried metal, then this does not tell us the metal or the ground emitted energy. It only tells us we measured a change in the charge in the air above where the metal is buried. Until you make some experiments with instruments, you can't even know if the change in the air charge was positive or negative. You only know it is an anomaly in the air charge strong enough to measure, not if it is increased energy or decreased energy of a charge. From what I have heard reported so far, it seems to me to be very unlikely that any energy is emitted from buried metal or from the soil it is buried in. The probabilities alone point to anomalies in the earth's electrostatic charge that you are measuring, not to energy radiating from the soil or from buried metal. Any ionic activity in the soil could not be measured without putting probes in the soil. And we look at where the zahori antenna is put... in the air -- not in the soil. In fact, we are measuring variations of charges in the air. The whole idea that we are measuring energy emitted from a phenomenon, or from the ground is wrong.... it is only some theoretical idea people made up.

I do not think it is a good idea to continue the legend that buried metals emit energy unless you have some strong evidence to show there is actually some energy emissions that you measured, and show what kind of energy this is, to show you are not simply measuring an anomaly in the air charge.

Best wishes,
J_P

[J_Player]

Phenomenon Testing

Here is a test I think can give better information about the secrets of "the phenomenon"

1. When you find beeping on your zahori, Write down some information:
A. How far distance it is beeping.
B. How wet is the ground.
C. Any plants near? Rocks near, etc. ?
D. Near to power lines, buildings?

2. Dig for target and write down more information:
A. What did you find? how big? Empty hole?
B. How deep below surface?
C. Measure again with Zahori - how much distance it beeps when target is removed and hole is empty?

3. Put dirt back into hole, and compact it with your foot to make it hard same as before you start digging.
Then take another measurement with the zahori to see how far distance you find beeping when there is no target in the hole.

We will now have 8 items of data to help us learn real information about "phenomenon" instead of believe legends that always change from different theories.
We can use facts and data that people measure instead of theories.
And we can learn some real ideas about what "the phenomenon" is.

Best wishes,
J_P