New user here, ordered and waiting for hardware.
But, that didn't stop me from building an antenna ahead of time. dual square loops, 3/4" PVC, 40 inches on a side, 7 turns of 18 gauge per. Totally weather-tight - hey, it's PVC conduit.
Anyway, I just had to do some testing, and given I don't have the hardware yet, I had to make due. Ended up running the two loops into an ADC running 24 bits@ 48khz. Not the same resolution as the real hardware, but the traces look similar. Loops were terminated into 600 ohms vs. the 2.4k on the real amp.
What I'm wondering is, what sort of signal level is expected at the input of the real amp for strokes not really close? I see some that I estimate as being about 400 miles away based on what was going on on the map at the time, as well as a few that were closer, like 25 miles. On the attached screen shots, the -1db point is about 8mv from zero. Tough to do db to volt conversions with pulses, but....
I was pleased that it appears that there is no high level magnetic noise here - 23 kv single phase running by the front of the house, and the traces attached are at ground level about 15 feet away from the line - not where I will be putting it the loops permanently anyway. what little 60hz stuff there was was easily removed with a 2khz high pass filter, which will apparently be done by the real amp.
I'm really looking forward to getting online. I am near Wilmington, NC - dead center between the stations in MD and FL on the East Coast.