Cave Radiolocation by David Gibson
ISBN 978-1-4457-7105-2. Softbound, 76pp, A4.
Published by the author via Lulu Enterprises, Inc. See lulu.com/content/8807880
Description: This book is a collection of essays on radiolocation in caves, and related topics. Most of the articles have previously been published in the journal of the Cave Radio and Electronics Group, a special interest group of the British Cave Research Association. The topic is approached from a theoretical point-of-view, studying the mechanism of propagation of the fields, and how their measurement can be used to provide a location tool for use in cave surveying. In addition, other peripheral topics are covered, such as channel sounding, electronic measurement of clinometer angle and the copyright of cave surveys.
Keywords: cave surveying, channel sounding, electromagnetic theory, field gradient, radiolocation.
About the author: David Gibson studied maths and engineering at Cambridge University and was president of the university's caving club in 1979-80. By profession an electronic design engineer, he has also been the technical editor of the journal of the British Cave Research Association's Cave Radio and Electronics Group (CREG). His many articles on cave radio and related cave-electronics topics have provided a firm and unique basis for further studies in this area. His PhD thesis from the University of Leeds was a study of through-the-earth radio, which has been published as Channel Characterisation and System Design for Sub-Surface Communications (ISBN 978-1-4457-6953-0). This companion volume is a collection of essays, reprinted from the CREG journal. David Gibson now works for the UK's Mines Rescue Service in its research and consultancy division.
Cover design: the main image on the front cover has also been used on the cover of the CD Subtle Things by Universal Hall Pass, featuring the music of Melissa Kaplan. The CD, and MP3 downloads, are available from amazon.com. Also see universalhallpass.com and google.com/search?q=Melissa+R+Kaplan
Over the past 16 years I have written several innovative articles on radio-location, on the use of electronics in cave surveying. Most of these have appeared in the journal of the British Cave Research Association's Cave Radio and Electronics Group. This volume is a collection of these essays.
In these essays, cave radiolocation is approached from a theoretical point-of-view, studying the mechanism of propagation of the fields, and how their measurement can be used to provide a location tool for use in cave surveying. In addition, other peripheral topics are covered, such as channel sounding, electronic measurement of clinometer angle and the copyright of cave surveys. You will not find any practical electronic designs in these pages - for that you should study the online index to the CREG journal at bcra.org.uk/creg.
These essays span a period from 1994 to 2006 and, looking back at the earlier ones now, I see that they are significantly less polished, and possibly of less use to the reader. Nevertheless, they are all here in this collection, and mostly unaltered from the original text that was published. Some of the earlier essays I now evaluate to be less interesting or important than others. Because I have used the original text, which was assembled on ancient computers running now-outdated software, there have been some formatting difficulties, which are apparent in places. In addition, I have retained the page numbering of the original articles, and this should not be confused with the page numbering of this volume, which is given in the centre of the headers and footers.
As an introduction to cave communications and radiolocation, the most relevant essays are probably the last two, on pages 73-75, which appeared in BCRA's Essential Sources in Cave Science (number 16 in the Cave Studies Series) in 2006.
The article How Accurate is Radio-location summarised, for the first time, the causes of inaccuracy in the technique. In Radiolocation Errors Arising from a Tilted Loop I analysed, for the first time, some of these errors; including a proof of the radio-location "thirds" rule. My article on 3D Vector Processing of Magnetometer and Inclinometer Data has been used by a USA firm in the design of their own 3D navigation equipment.As part of my work on sub-surface radio at Leeds University, I developed a novel 'field gradient technique', which could prove an interesting new tool for radio-location. I gave a paper on this subject at meetings of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin in December 1998, and at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in July 2000.
Some of the articles in this collection were originally intended to be used as source material for my PhD thesis but the scope of the thesis had to be restricted when it became clear that there was too much material to cover both communications and radiolocation in the same work. The thesis has now (in 2010) been published (Channel Characterisation and System Design for Sub-Surface Communications, ISBN 978-1-4457-6953-0). However, some eight years since its completion, I still have not found time to embark on the intended project to revise and collate the radiolocation material into a comparable volume, so I have upgraded it to a 'published work' without undertaking any further revision.
| 1994 | Water Tracing with VLF Radio, CREGJ 16, p9, June 1994. |
| 1994 | Sites for Testing Cave Radios at Depth, CREGJ 18, p12-14, Dec. 1994. |
| 1996 | Electronics in Cave Surveying, CREGJ 23, p25-26, March 1996. |
| 1996 | Review: Electronic Compass Modules, CREGJ 23, p27-28, March 1996. |
| 1996 | Electronics in Surveying, part 2, CREGJ 24, p25, June 1996. |
| 1996 | How Accurate is Radio-location? Cave & Karst Science 23(2). p77-80. Oct. 1996. [An earlier version appeared in Compass Points 10, pp5-9, Dec. 1995] |
| 1996 | 3-D Vector Processing of Magnetometer and Inclinometer Data, Cave & Karst Science 23(2), p71-76, Oct. 1996 |
| 1998 | Radiolocation Errors Arising from a Tilted Loop. Compass Points 21, p18-20. [reprinted in #21 following typesetting errors in #20]. |
| 1998 | Radiolocation using Field Gradient Techniques, Compass Points 22. pp10-12. Dec. 1998. |
| 1999 | Cave Radio Notebook - 42: Winding Accuracy of Radiolocation Antennas, CREGJ 38, p14. Dec. 1999. |
| 2000 | A Channel Sounder for Sub-Surface Communications: Part 2 - Computer Simulation of a Small Buried Loop. CREGJ 41, p29-32. Sept. 2000. |
| 2001 | Cave Surveying by Radio-Location - 1. CREGJ, 43, p24-26. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | Cave Radio Notebook 45: Is 'Cave Radio' a radio phenomenon?. CREGJ 45. pp27-29. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | Cave Radio Notebook 46: The role of skin depth. CREGJ 45. pp27-29. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | Cave Radio Notebook 47: Writing a software radio. CREGJ 45. pp27-29. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | The Copyright of Cave Surveys. [based on versions which appeared in Compass Points 11 (March 1996) and Caves & Caving 73 (Autumn 1996) ] |
| 2002 | Cave Radio Notebook 49: Trigonometric Radiolocation. CREGJ 48. p7. June 2002. |
| 2002 | Cave Surveying by Radio-Location - 3. CREGJ 48, p11-16. June 2002. |
| 2002 | Design Directory: Radiolocation and Cave Radio, CREGJ 48, p22-23, June 2002. |
| 2002 | Cave-to-Cave Radiolocation: a Generalised Algorithm, CREGJ 50. p11. Dec. 2002 |
| 2003 | 3D Radiolocation using a Single Station, CREGJ 52, pp14-17. June 2003. |
| 2003 | A Bibliography of Radiolocation, CREG 52, pp22-23, June 2003. [An earlier version appeared in compass Points 30, March 2003) ] |
| 2004 | An Electronic Compass and Clinometer Using Optical Sensor, CREGJ 57, pp22-24, Sept. 2004. |
| 2006 | Communications in Caves. In Essential Sources in Cave Science [Cave Studies Series 16], edited by G. Proudlove, Buxton: British Cave Research Association |
| 2006 | Radiolocation [Ibid.] |