Phone calling from 500 feet under

Image for the article Phone calling from 500 feet under

As everyone is looking in the sky for WiFi making its way to airplanes, we, at 21talks, are going down ― yay, it’s a “They go north, we go South” habit that we have from time to time.

David Reager, a physicist who has been working for 20 years at the Los Alamos lab, has invented a smart radio transmitter that could go as deep as under 500 feet (around 170 meters) from the earth surface.

The Reagor’s invention could become an important tool in preventing underground mining deaths, according to TwinCities Pioneer Press. And if miners, firefighters and emergency workers turn their back to it, we’re pretty sure that the invention could equip subways and underground parking lots.

Technically speaking, the device combines the use of very low frequency electromagnetic radiation (just like those waves responsible for earthquake) with digital signal processors and audio compression to transmit voice and text data.

Each base station set up in underground mines would have a handset that could transmit to the surface. Each base station could also transmit voice and text data from individual hand-held phones that each miner could carry.

Reagor’s prototype is being commercially developed by Vital Alert Communication of Huntsville, Ontario.

May 12, 2006 | By Nuno

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