Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Seminar für Medienwissenschaft

EM-Sniffing

Oswald Berthold
<oberthold informatik.hu-berlin.de>

Berlin, January 8, 2009

Contents
1 Introduction 3

2 EM Theory 5
2.1 Field Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.1 Electric Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2 Magnetic Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Combined Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 Antenna, Loudspeaker, AD Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.5 Interaction with Biological tissue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3 EM Practice 11
3.1 Examples in experimental and artistic practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2 Hands on examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.1 Experiment 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.2 Experiment 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2.3 Experiment 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4 Concluding remarks 22
4.1 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

2
 Electromagnetism is woven in tightly with current physical models of reality 1 . In these models,
Electromagnetic fields help explaining how a wide variety of phenomena in the universe on all scales
fit together. Only recently, in larger historical context, has Electromagnetism become a focal point
in scientific interest and has been elaborated to serve as part of the fundaments of technology. We
want to elucidate this aspect of the world from the point of view of electronic media technology and
practice with an emphasis on the relation to sound.

This document was written as a homework assignment in the course “Sound Arguments - Sonification, Audi-
fication, Auditory Display” held by Axel Volmar during summer term 2007 at the Seminar for Media Studies,
Humboldt University of Berlin.
For the audio links later on to work from within the pdf, its best to put the audio files on the same level as the pdf.
Alternatively you can load up the entire audio file directory in your player and navigate the list manually in sync
with the text. Audacity [39] is a great tool for viewing spectrograms and has been used throughout development
of this text for that purpose.

1 Introduction
Electric and magnetic forces have come to be interpreted as Electromagnetism a relatively long way into the
orthodox history of science. The culmination of attempts of electromagnetically retro-coding and modelling
reality can be tied with sufficient congruence to the 19th century. Basic aspects of both electricity and magnetism
have been considered on and off during the centuries preceding this range of time, especially the behaviour of
light has received great attention in scientific study but their unification into a common theory notably occured
with James Clerk Maxwell’s work, (particularly a set of papers published in the 1860s), which built on the work
and observations of a long line of other researchers.
The electrically attractive force of amber has been known in ancient times. This went alongside ontologies of
mutual pervasion of things being, defining materiality and interactions of objects as phenomena of “essential”
radiation, resonance and reflection as Zielinski lays out by bestirring Empedokles and Demokrit [49]. Already
there we find the idea of emptiness (vacuum) as a medium for some kind of interactions of the elementary
constituents of life. Other displays of electrical and magnetic forces, identifiable a posteriori, have been observed
and documented but remained largely unexplained and unmanipulable.
After some period of epistemogenic blankness, treatments of magnetic and electric knowledge resurface in scholarly
publications at a certain point, incisevely so William Gilberts “De magnete magneticisque corporibus”, purportedly
published in 1600 and advancing science for 250 years accourding to this source [37]. From there on it gained
momentum until

In the mid-1800s electricity began developing into the Fascinosum of natural sciences [49], pg.189.

Around this time, interest in and evidence of electricity and its manipulability has long started peaking. In
the 1780s Galvani took his early stance on bioelectricity, which was going to be picked up by the mid-1800s
physiologists, Müller and Bois-Reymond, while he himself was moved into the Off shortly after because of his
insistence on the exclusive biological origin of electricity. In 1800 Volta constructs his voltaic piles while Ritter,
among other things, produces an early accumulator, Ørsted in 1820 demonstrates magnetic deflection close to
current carrying conductors, Ampère starts working on theoretical backings of these recent demonstrations, thereby
giving birth to electrodynamics. At the same time Michael Faraday already is at work, eventually arriving at the
field concept, followed and amplified by the work of Henry, Weber, Gauss and many others. Work which J.C.
Maxwell thankfully lifts up to well known results, further polished by Heaviside. Consequently, these theories laid
ground for the emerging Art of Wireless, arguably still one of the most topical areas of natural and technological
research.
So much for a highspeed version of the history of electrodynamics. This epistemic trajectory sounds only conse-
quent from todays vantage point but had to be and was accompanied by broad re-conceptions of reality among
1 Some authors are even more enthusiastic about the importance of Electromagnetism in the "civilized" world in the 21st

century, see for example van der Vorst et al..

3
the protagonists. Concepts of oscillation and vibration lying at the heart of the phenomenal world had to be
postulated and elaborated on the behaviour of readily accessible media like fluids. This recurs prominently in [37]
and condenses to the assertion that

. . . , the media of electromagnetism are ’afloat’ in an anti-laplacian or anti-newtonian discourse.

This discourse in turn is inseparably connected to a discourse of waves: electricity, sound, light, heat, etc. A voice
from the distance sings about music being the most relevant of arts, closest to reality because of its foundation
in the waves principle. The choir of Ampère and Ritter: all that is, vibrates.
At this point, the ensuing implementation of ideas by electromagnetic means calls many more players on the
scene. Hertz confirms Maxwell’s theory empirically in 1887, followed by the realization of wireless telegraphy
starting in 1895. At this point we might be led to observe with Dieter Daniels that

The discovery of wireless signal transmission is the last great legacy of the 19th to the 20th century [6].

Physical implementation of transmitting conditions is arcane at these times but gaining huge momentum and
practicability by the invention of the electron-tube in 1906 by de Forest (and von Lieben). The electronic ampli-
fier and oscillator made possible by the (feedbacked) vacuum-tube and the thusly enabled disposal of the “defect”
of early radio technology, commented on by one prominent engineer of that era, namely its undirectedness in both
geo- and frequency-space marks the beginning of a fragmentation of the electromagnetic frequency continuum.
While passing through the techno-logical and -cultural explosions (literally) in the 20th century, the continuum’s
discoursive perception devolves into its current skewed form.

We will try to pin this down to exemplary maneuvers to that end in the course of the text. When On/Off-Keying
was replaced by more sophisticated keying schemes in the infancy of wireless telegraphy, suddenly, it wasn’t the
channel anymore, that was heard, but only some of the channels characteristics or properties. The tuned oscillator
made extremly narrow slices of the spectrum addressable as channels. Reginald Fessendens broadcast from 1906,
first legislations from before WWI and the commencement of regular public broadcasts, “all these dates mark the
end of radio as a producer of media knowledge” [11]. Entertainment and measurement seem to diverge.
Listening to radio is not listening to radio but listening to radio programme [28], and yet: not all is lost. Atmo-
spheric conditions can be extracted from the behaviour of radio waves, regardless of modulation, among other
things. We will pick this up later when looking at the DCF77 based geometric approach. This is our equally
highspeed heterology of applied electromagnetism.

Producing some insight into or perceptual deregulation of this ongoing process of the unwiring of techno-culture
provides a good part of the motivation for this investigation, exercising navigation between the islands of Natural
Radio and Technical Radio and the encompassing ocean.

“Natural Radio” describes naturally-occurring electromagnetic (radio) signals emanating from light-
ning storms, aurora (The Northern and Southern Lights), and most importantly, the Earth’s magnetic-
field (the Magnetosphere) [29].

Astronomical radio might be included into this definition depending on the agent’s preference. Civilization radio
in turn describes all man-made electromagnetic emission. Obtaining any such insight clearly requires enhanced
perceptual abilities, allowably mediated by electronic devices. Radio as such is in no way “about broadcasting but
about space and communication” [12], time and oscillation one might want to add.
Technocultural discourse on radio is impeded it seems, by misfocussing on narrow spots within the spectrum
available and their programming, while the development of radio technology is not hindered in this way. It is
owed mostly to amateur radio practices again that some relevant line in this discourse has not died out. Sniffing
as a gesture certainly grows out of “amateur” curiosity and aims at choice and at experiencing the spectrum’s
vastness and ubiquity.
Nonetheless media-archaeological investigations seem adequate in accompanying the increasing spread of con-
certed media deployment as in internet streaming, podcasts, WLAN, mobile telephony, geolocation and the

4
introduction of RFID technology. All of which are radio-related and interweave in wide-area, local-area and body-
area networks. UWB (ultra-wideband) communications with its low power levels and large spectral spread posing
an exceptional challenge in this regard.
Finally, we want to contribute towards a heightening of the auditory in the ranking of our senses, following Gerold
Baier’s proposal. Since Aristotle vision took firm residence at the top of the hierarchy of sensory perception,
another indication of a distorted view of the electromagnetic spectrum.
“Sniffing” then shall mean a specific mode of reception, a mode that enables us to listen to the medium at
work and as such is much broader than what is regularly understood by listening to radio. This mode allows
for the extraction of raw signals, for the most part ignoring the protocol stacks, aquiring only SIGINT in [37]’s
terminology. This mode may be applied to study the two strands of radio emanations introduced above:

• natural radio phenomena

• the technological radio landscape: information transmissions, detection and identification apparatus, oper-
ational noises, etc.

How the apparitions enumerated are related to sound is now missing to be explicated in more detail. Obviously, they
are related by the oscillatory dispositive. Abstractly, all radio phenomena can be discussed in terms of oscillations
of different frequencies. What exactly oscillates, becomes and vanishes, is, within certain discoursive limits, of
no importance. These oscillations can be unfolded from certain carriers onto others by technological means. The
figure, in turn, is also the bridge to one of 20th century’s contributions in deepening of the knowledge on energy
and matter, by way of Louis de Broglie. What has to be considered then besides power levels, amplification and
filtering effects are nonlinearities in the transduction chain, sensor and post-processing modules.
This assertion lives in accordance with the observation of a tendency in communication, the separation of the
message from the body of the messenger. Zielinski iterates the example of the slave messenger and evokes a
header / body dichotomy. Interestingly enough, the function of header and body has been swapped in technical
communication protocols, because a packet’s header is as necessary for moving the content around as the slave’s
body, and the body has become a tight fit for the message and nothing else. That’s not the end of the story
however, since an ensemble of headers may provide enough information to subject an unknown message to fruitful
extrapolation as shown in [48].

It is certainly appropriate now to have a brief look at the theory of electromagnetism to narrow our definition of
the media under discussion.

2 EM Theory
It (Maxwells work, OB) made it possible to realise that the entire Universe is the site of an incredible
variety of modes for the propagation of oscillating electromagnetic waves – waves that can be read
in a vast spectrum of frequencies ranging from zero (continuous or unidirectional current) to 1020
hertz [34].

What are these waves? Waves are propagating organized disturbances in the field. As indicated above, it is
possible to apply the view of Electrodynamics to a very wide range of natural phenomena but we shall limit
ourselves to the range of radio- and micro-waves, corresponding to field-intensity fluctuation frequencies on the
order of approximately 0 Hz to 2.5 Ghz (Microwaves actually going up to somewhere at 2 Thz), leaving aside
anything above like light (of all colours) and ionizing radiation. So we probe further and ask,

What is a field? No one really knows. [9].

...

According to Richard Feynman, a field is a mathematical function we use to avoid the idea of action
at a distance [9].

5
A charged particle (electron or its positively charged counterpart) causes an electric field surrounding it. It extends
over empty space and exerts a force on other charged particles present in the field. Coulomb’s Law states that
the field strength is proportional to the charges involved and inversely proportional to the square of the distance
between the charges.
1 q1 q2
F = (Coulomb’s Law)
4πε0 r2
If a charged particle is in motion (as is the case with electric current) relative to a resting reference frame, it
causes a magnetic field which exerts a force on other moving charged particles.
The development of the field concept is ascribed to Faraday but people like Romagnosi, Ørsted, Ampère, Maxwell,
Heaviside and Hertz all had their share in the forming and differentiation of that concept in the 19th century, as
we have seen above. It serves as a very low-level concept in Electromagnetism. A field can be characterized by
force-lines. In an electric field, the force-lines terminate at charges and are perpendicular to the charge if it is at
rest. Magnetic force-lines on the other hand form closed loops. The force also has a direction, so it is a vector
and points from positive charge to negative charge in the case of an electric field and from magnetic north-pole
to magnetic south-pole in the case of the magnetic field. Pictures are readily available in physics textbooks, such
as [1].

2.1 Field Basics

A field can thus be thought of as a “special state of space”, lending structure to it and which manifests itself
by letting forces act on other charges through empty space. In the case of a singular charged particle, the field
extends to infinity from the source. This is interesting in relation to ideas of aether, since viewed as such, empty
space is not empty but pervaded by fields of a multitude of sources, naively speaking.

2.1.1 Electric Field

F
The electric field strength is E = Q (force per charge) in a homogenous field, such as between the plates of a
capacitor, its unit is given as Newton/Coulomb or Volt/meter and decreases roughly with the square of the distance
from the charge, see Coulomb’s Law above [43]. The elementary charge of the electron e = 1.60210−19 As.
Charges at rest cause an electrostatic field. F and therefore E have a direction, hence are vectors which are
tangent to the field lines, which point from positive to negative charges. The denser the lines the stronger the
field, although they are not an absolute measure and are real only as discoursive tools. In inhomogenous fields
the notion of potential (to a selected reference point) is used together with equipotential areas, which is the path
~
integral over E,
R2
U = 1 Ed~ ~ s,

with 1 and 2 the reference points. Another important field quantity are flux and flux density where flux equals
charge and flux density is charge per area or D = Q 2
A , its unit given as As/m . A dielectricum is a non-conducting
material which is pervaded by an electric field. As flux density is proportional to field strength, D ∼ E in almost
all materials, this dependency can be replaced by D = ε0 εr E with ε0 εr denoting permittivity. Permittivity of free
space ε0 = 8, 85410−12 As/V m and εr being relative permittivity of the material in question. There are materials
whose permittivity depends on field strength, like barium titanate [20].

2.1.2 Magnetic Field

The use of compasses especially in marine activities seems to have been established around 1300 with William
Gilbert [46] supplying some theory to this practical knowledge around 1600.
Ørsted discovered in 1820 (and Romagnosi a bit earlier) that a compass needle is deflected in the proximity of
a wire under current. Every moving charged particle (current) generates a magnetic field. Magnetic lines of
force are closed loops in contrast to electric field lines, which terminate at the charges. By using coils of wire, a
stronger magnetic field can be produced with the same amount of electrical energy and by inserting cores with
higher permeability the effect can be further amplified.

6
Magnetic field quantities, analogously to the electric field quantities we have seen earlier are

• magnetic field strength: H = IN l with H field strength, I current, N number of coil windings and l coil
length. The direction of the force is along the coil axis [17], [47],
F
• magnetic flux density: B = Il , [B] = Tesla

• permeability: flux density can be written as B = µH with µ = µ0 µr , µ0 = 4π10−7 Am Vs

and µr the
permeability number of the material pervaded by the field. Ferromagnetic materials have a permeability
number significantly larger than 1 [20].

2.2 Combined Field

As it turns out, what is thought of as “light” is actually a propagating oscillatory disturbance in the
electromagnetic field, i.e., an electromagnetic wave. Different frequencies of oscillation give rise to
the different forms of electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves at the lowest frequencies, to visible
light at intermediate frequencies, to gamma rays at the highest frequencies [43].

A changing magnetic field produces an electric field, a changing electric field produces a magnetic field (charged
particles in motion are equal to electric current). Siegert goes into great detail about this special relation as a
manifest on-off principle [37]. Because of this strong interdependence both fields can be considered as a single
coherent entity (or rather, the other way round): the electromagnetic field [43].
A charged particle in motion produces a magnetic field, because its electric field becomes dynamic through the
movement in relation to a stationary frame of reference.

~ = 1 ~v × E
B ~
c2
~ and B
The particle movement ~v is perpendicular to E ~ [9]. The discovery of a time-varying magnetic field producing
an electric field is due to Faraday and Henry, ca. 1830 [36]. The E-field (electric) and the H-field (magnetic)
are simultaneously present and linked by the Maxwell-Equations. If one component is known, the other can be
calculated.
Maxwells Equations then are (in differential form):

~
5·E = ρ
ε0
~
5·B = 0
~ ~
5×E = − ∂∂tB
~ ~
5×B = µ0 J~ + µ0 ε0 ∂∂tE

These together with the Lorentz force law are the laws of classical electromagnetism [44] and basically apply to
both static and dynamic cases. See [30] for a gentle breakdown on the equations.
The electromagnetic force exerted on a charged particle in the field is one of the four basic forces in physical
theory (besides weak and strong nucleic forces and gravitational force).
The speed of light is constant and depends on permittivity and permeability of free space. This realization
was one of Maxwell’s major achievements [41], pg. 24. It provides a steppingstone to more elaborate versions
of electromagnetic theorization. Within special relativity it is shown that electric and magnetic fields that are
moving, transform into the other symmetrically. Consideration of electrodynamics from relativistic and quantum
theoretical angles is attractive but clearly out of proportion here.

2.3 Antenna, Loudspeaker, AD Conversion

Radiation is a phenomenon characterizing the RF/microwave range. It is well known that structures
radiate poorly when they are small with respect to the wavelength. For example, the wavelengths

7
 at the power distribution frequencies of 50 and 60 Hz are 6.000 and 5.000 km, respectively, which
are enormous with respect to the objects we use in our day-to-day life. In fact, to radiate efficiently,
a structure has to be large enough with respect to the wavelength λ. The concepts of radiation,
antennas, far field, and near field have to be investigated [41] pg.8.

We will try and fulfill this last advise. Radiation is the transfer of energy from electric current in a wire to field
fluctuations in free space. This point in the chain is crucial in consideration from a media perspective, because it
constitutes an interface between different modes of propagation of information. Information is transformed when
crossing this boundary in either direction depending on the constitution of the terminals, antenna and surrounding
space. There are many details about the way this happens, some of which we try to consider.

Antennas are metallic structures designed for radiating and receiving electromagnetic energy. An
antenna acts as a transitional structure between the guiding device (e.g. waveguide, transmission
line) and the free space. The official IEEE definition of an antenna as given by Stutzman and Thiele
follows the concept: “That part of a transmitting or receiving system that is designed to radiate or
receive electromagnetic waves” [31].

Any current going through a conductor sets up a field. The relation of frequency in question to the length (and
shape) of the conductor determines the amount of energy which is radiated. The more harmonic the relation
the larger a portion of the elctrical energy will be radiated from the conductor. Reversely, this is valid for the
induction of electric current by a fluctuating electromagnetic field in the conductor [32]. Technically, the antenna
becomes resonant when its impedance Z becomes purely ohmic, a relatively simple matter for a dipole antenna. It
is not necessarily a single frequency for which this is the case in a given antenna though, and in some applications
multiband characteristics of an antenna are desired. One simple approach is to use a very short wire in the LF band
and so operating in a flat portion of the antenna’s frequency response. Another approach is to build electrically
voluminous structures as in conic or cylindrical antennas.
A second important aspect of antennas is their directivity, that is their radiating behaviour with respect to space.
The two poles in this case are the ideal isotropic radiator (omnidirectivity) and the narrow beam. Now there is
possible a wide variety of combinations of an antenna’s frequency-related and spatial radiation properties.
In receiving mode, which solely occupies our attention, the signal can be postprocessed by analog circuitry or
digital signal processing routines after the field fluctuations have been converted to electrical current. The lift to
digital representation is in itself another locus of mediatic jump. What we have to deal with are variations in a
physical magnitude over a potentially broad range of frequencies which sum up to specific waveforms in the time
domain. In classical radio communication, a narrow filter (resonant circuit) will be employed to select the desired
band but for our purposes we are more concerned with broadband reception and analyses of the resulting signals.
These analyses will be conducted in the digital domain leaving almost exclusively amplification to the analog part.
Amplication is no small deal. A WWI eavesdropping specialist is quoted as

“You hear flies crossing the table, as if horses pattering over plaster, you hear the faintest breeze like
the rumbling of thunder; you hear the earths movements brought about by the growth of grass; you
hear earthworms crawling. Microphones underneath the wallpapers in prisoner camps enable us to
eavesdrop on whispered conversations. The slightest sounds of mining in the ground can be assessed”
in [37], pg.394.

Clearly, if signals fall below the least significant bit of the ADC’s level range, we have lost everything.
Once the signal is adequately embodied in electric currents, it is immediatly possible to make them heard, to
audify them. As researchers in different fields repeatedly have shown (telephone earpiece and action potentials,
geiger counter, detector clicks in physics laboratories, early computer debugging), in practice, audification can
result in large epistemic gain, since, electricity is generally not directly perceptible for humans while sound is. A
signal has to be either visualized or audified for analysis. Indirect mathematical approaches on the raw numbers
can more easily be leveraged after certain base parameters have been determined.
Above’s immediacy has one big problem though, that of bandwidth. Ultimately the bandwidth of our auditory
system. We are able to gather signals in the range from 0 Hz up to many GHz with little effort. All of this

8
can’t possibly be listened to at once, both technically and semantically. Luckily we can employ the technique of
mixing (heterodyning) combined with filtering or directly apply spectral tools to manipulate and shift around and
compress suitable portions of the spectrum at hand.
To sum up, the media-terminals we are dealing with are antennas, AD/DA converters and loudspeakers. In
open space, electromagnetic waves propagate in a trivial manner, any kind of material structure however such as
walls, buildings, plants and landscape as well as energetic structures such as other fields will have an effect on
the propagation, like shielding (absorption), reflection and refraction. Electric fields will be absorbed by many
materials in our surroundings, not quite so magnetic fields [5]. This brings up sizes again.

There is an interesting feature to note about microwaves: They cover, indeed, the frequency range
where the wavelength is of the order of the size of objects of common use, that is, meter, decimeter,
centimeter, and millimeter, depending of course on the material in which it is measured [41].

Matter resident in a field is being polarized [41] pg.11. There may be frequency-dependent permittivity und
permeability. In the near field, only the B-field is present, the E-field reappearing at a distance of 2D2 /λ from
the source, D being the antenna’s largest dimension, which marks the transistion from near field to the far field.
See [9] for details on what is happening physically in the transition from near to far field, why the E component
is cancelled close to the antenna and reemerges at a certain distance from it. For the low-frequency range, the
static case approximates the situation with sufficient accuracy. EM-waves come as transversal waves, the E-part
perpendicular to the B part and both perpendicular to the direction of propagation. In a bounded medium the
waves are reflected, such a bound may also be realized by differing wave-impedances brought about by immaterial
objects.

2.4 Modulation
We should briefly touch modulation, since it has already been brought into play above. Modulation, or keying
in digital radio, is the way information is encoded in a signal’s parameters, that is, a particular mechanism
and mathematical model by which the transfer of information onto the carrying entity is achieved. Keying
schemes are multitude and can be laid out as in [45]. There, analog, digital and spread spectrum techniques
are distinguished. The basic signal parameters are amplitude, frequency and phase, all of which can be used
to impress information onto a simple waveform carrier. Spread spectrum may even be regarded as a particular
form of frequency modulation, that is the carrier is smeared over a wider band but in discrete steps. Importance
falls to the sequence. Various multiplexing methods may additionally interfere with the signals shape, particularly
Time-Division Multiplexing in digital wireless transmissions, e.g. mobile telephony. A special case of amplitude
modulation is given with On/Off-Keying, relying solely on the presence or absence of the carrier signal.

2.5 Interaction with Biological tissue

As a last move in this theoretic part we want to look at electricity and biological matters. Starting, at the very
latest, with the research and approaches of Galvani and Ritter, electricity is intimately tied to biological substance.
For example,

only in the 1840s the experimenter’s body has been replaced by the Galvanometer [37], pg 346.

Consequently,

knowledge of the frog, and thusly of man is subordinate to the apriori of frequency since 1838 [37],
pg 347.

This view has been modulated by additional findings since and comes full circle with the accumulating presences
of electromagnetic emissions in the environment. Consideration of the interaction of fields with other fields or with
matter becomes most relevant in at least two areas. One being electro-magnetic compatibility of electric circuits,
the other being “biological compatibility”, that between em-fields and living cells and cell compounds. The latter

9
shall be quickly examined here - even if we cannot delve fully into this most interesting subject at this time - because
the production of biological effects gives awareness on the potential intricacy of electromagnetic effects in general
and its interwovenness with the behaviour of matter and organisms in particular, hence reemphasizing its relevance
to fundamental questions of physics and life. Electrical engineering may only regard those domains a system has
been designed to effect but we are interested in any kind of action that may be brought about, especially in an
environment where technical apparatus is methodically crippled due to manufacturing cost considerations [24].
Additionally, the sheer quantity of man-made electromagnetic presence seems overwhelming. Robert Becker has
given an estimation of this quantity:

Since then (WWII, OB), the density of electromagnetic radiation has doubled every four years, and
electromagnetic pollution has been multiplied a hundredfold over the past thirty years [8].

The existence of thermal effects is unquestioned in the scientific community, of which the microwave oven by
way of RADAR is emblematic, and precipitating itself in the choice of exposure limits in legislation concerning
electromagnetic emissions. That’s not all however.

Differential effects have indeed been observed after exposure to pulsed-wave with respect to continuous-
wave (CW) microwaves. In practice, biological effects have been observed under a variety of exposure
types: CW, sinusoidal amplitude-modulated wave (AMW), pulsed wave (PW), and pulsed modulated
wave (PMW) [13] [41], pg.33.

And more generally,

We should not consider power, however, as the only parameter able to induce effects. For instance,
differential effects have also been observed after exposure to plane- versus circular-polarized waves [41],
pg. 33.

This leads to questioning the sufficiency of definitions like the SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) used in the
assessment of microwave equipment. Of additional interest is the relation between natural and man-made radiation
sources that organisms might be exposed to. Here we find that

Cosmic noise extends from about 20 MHz to about 4 GHz. Man-made noise is an unwelcome by-
product of electrical machinery and equipment operation and exists from frequencies of about 1 MHz
to about 1 GHz. The peak field intensity in industrial areas exceeds the value of cosmic noise by several
orders of magnitude, which draws attention to the need for judicious ground station site selection [41],
pg.34.

Frequency and spatial behaviour are connected tightly as we already know. When material is exposed to a field,
the field strength decays inside the material. This can be formalized into a parameter called skin depth, which is
frequency dependent.

As an example, the skin depth is three times smaller at 900 MHz, a mobile telephony frequency, than
at 100 MHz, an FM radio frequency, which means that the fields are three times more concentrated
near the surface of the body at 900 MHz than at 100 MHz. It also means that internal organs of the
body are submitted to higher fields at lower than at higher frequency.

...

We are less and less transparent to nonionizing EM radiation when the frequency increases. In the
optical range, skin depth is extremely small: We are not transparent anymore [41] pg.42.

The body’s transparency and the eye’s peak sensitivity obviously engage in an interesting relation of measureabilty.
In other bands the human body is indeed partially or totally transparent.

10
 The human body has also become (has always been, OB) an antenna: the waves spreading through
the atmosphere are captured by radio and television antennas, but also by the nervous system. A
radio antenna continually captures all the broadcasting stations whose radio waves cover its geographic
location. The adjustable electric circuits within the device filter out all the frequencies but one . . .

...

There exists no definite border between the electromagnetic fields maintained by the bodys metabolism
and those that exist in the environment. Cells are electrical systems sensitive to their electromagnetic
milieus, cell membranes are capacitors. Cell tissues are traversed by alternating and direct currents. . .
In short, in the world constituted by electromagnetic cosmology (and industry), understanding the
electromagnetic field is the only way to understand ourselves and our surroundings [8].

2.6 Summary
To sum up this episode and to close the switch on the theoretical current source and the sink of practice, we
will reiterate the epistemic objects encountered so far. Abstractly speaking we have dealt with waves, that is
propagating organized fluctuations of intensities of certain magnitudes. These may be enformed in electromagnetic
fields, in currents and voltages or in density of matter (pressure). These enforments may be transformed into each
other by transducers, examples of which are antennas, loudspeakers and microphones. The method of audification
flows forth from this arrangement as a special case of such a transformation, because:

• Electric signals are close to the Auditive through the loudspeaker (telephone) dispositive.
• The 0 - 20000 Hz frequency-range is close to the Auditive by identity in frequency space.

Within the electric and a fortiori electro-magnetic media the techno-mathematical dispositive of os-
cillation finds only itself in its entire ontological limitlessness [37], pg.308.

3 EM Practice
First off we want to derive the idea of sniffing more explicitly. In hacking culture it has a sharp definition [35].

sniff: v.,n.
1. To watch packets traversing a network. Most often in the phrase
packet sniffer, a program for doing same.
2. Synonym for poll.

In addition to that area of validity, sniffing has acquired meaning in the electronics and amateur radio scene. These
trajectories merge with digital radio applications (WiFi, Bluetooth, RFID, . . . ) and their respective debugging
tools, which leads to a seemingly legitimate extension of the jargon definition. While in one case information
quanta (packets) are delivered by a software only probe, in the other the target signal has to be extracted physically
from the carrier medium (conductor, air, free space, . . . ). Both situations imply minimal interaction with the
observed signal.
As EM Practice we will consider the use of sniffing devices, mainly broadband or allband receivers but with an
eye on measurement in general, in the practice of the electromagnetical experimenter. A first historic example is
Luigi Galvani, as indicated by [2] pg. 42, who, while occupying himself with the study of animal electricity was
in parallel “looking for atmospheric fluctuations in electricity” with antenna wires. This was in the late 1700s.
This spirit gained more contour throughout the development of the wireless art up to the present day, a spirit
embodied by radio amateurs, physical researchers, hackers and artists. In this sense, Natural radio not only has
been transmitted throughout earth’s history, but also was first in being received during the development of a wired
communication technology, the telephone:

11
 Watson would sit at the telephone for hours at night and listen to electromagnetic activity (ca.
1880) [50] pg.158.

Contact with the raw spectrum came as a techno-logical consequence for many early radio amateurs. Before and
during the first World War and well into the 1920s, they often had to build their equipment down to every single
electric component from scratch. In this atmosphere of experimentation, the media-archaeological phase of radio,

Human and technical communication signals mixed in with the hissing and crackling of cosmic radi-
ation [7] pg.35.

They still do, even. When utilization of the aether became more strictly regulated after ca. 1910 and prefabricated
receivers started to become available later on, engagement with the residual of successful electric operations
(transmissions) and ensuing knowledge generation [11] had to become more purposeful. The residual approach
resonates strongly with “Ansichten von der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft”, that which commonly falls short
of examination by analytic reason. Reality and possibility produce each other like light and shadow while it is left
open, which is which.
A proposal for a map of activities that may be encompassed by our usage of the term follows.

the hacker’s sniffer along WiFi, Bluetooth, RFID and other digital radio detection and manipulation
methods.

Measurement in physics and in engineering.

Various partitions in the amateur radio scene, such as Radio Direction Finding (Foxhunting), Dxing
and bandwatch (Bandwacht).

Extended amateur radiation research: dedicated E/B-field sniffers like the Aatis HF-Sniffer, Burkhard
Kainka’s LF-amplifier as well as research conducted by Natural radio enthusiasts such as Stephen P.
McGreevy or Wolfgang Friese in Germany working on lightning detection, thunderstorm prediction,
sferics detection etc.

Radio astronomy.

Radio Detection and Ranging or radio measurement.

Mini-spy detectors

Intelligence operations: EM-leakage or Compromising Emanations (CE) as demonstrated openly by

Wim van Eck, recently refreshed in connection with electronic voting machines [10] in Germany.

Subtle and hypothetic wave phenomena such as N. Kozyrev’s time-waves, S. Shnoll’s gravitational
waves and the search for correlation in random number generators as demonstrated in the GCP and
related projects.

The recycling of these approaches into artistic and musical experimentation.

We will focus on the last item in what ensues. We will not dissect intricate protocols, but stick to the direct
approach. The chain we have identified in the preceding chapter presents itself as vibrating electromagnetic field -
alternating current - vibrating paper-cone. Only when we start operating in a separate thread with a mathematical
toolset on the signals will we get back into protocols, symbols and content. This step clearly represents the shed
between audification and any kind of more elaborate sonification in Kramers terminology.
To <<gather that which is>> [27], pg. 460, brings us much closer to the medium itself, firstly, by the direct
coupling of vibrations in different domains and secondly, by capturing the secondary effects of electrical activity,
not to be confused with secondary fields as resulting from vortex currents in LF fields. The information captured is
not what is being dealt with at the intended level of access to a device (e.g. voice communication) but information

12
about the operation of the devices themselves. Acquisition of these methods seems indispensable in the wireless
age.
In a military context, this approach co-existed with dedicated radio communciation right from the beginning.
During the first World War, the Germans equipped radio listening posts to gather intelligence (and entertainment)
content from the opponent, which, as a matter of course, was turned back on them, Radio games has been
invented, a subgenre of electronic warfare.
Since then, they are repetitiously found in radio history. Deflection, manipulation and jamming became common
weapons in violent conflicts in the 20th and 21st century, even before World War I, in the Turkish-Bulgarian war
in 1912.

The turks cannot relay this realization, because their telegraph wires have been cut and bulgarian
jammers interrupt radio communication with high command in Constantinople. In the air above Adri-
anople an information war takes place in which the new electronic weaponry of jamming transmitters
take out conventional reconnaissance via balloons and so commence bulgarian victory [6] pg.124.

These games become more elaborated. In the second World War, the British could confuse the German’s radio
navigation system by intelligent jamming [37], pg. 400–401.

3.1 Examples in experimental and artistic practice

Radio navigation directs our gaze again at the spatial and geometric connotations of Electromagnetism. We live in
an invisble landscape, shaded in colours our eyes cannot transduce. This landscape changes not only with spatial
movement but also with frequency (colour) selection. Things that reflect a 400 THz signal may not behave in
the same way at 2.4 GHz. Antennas (eyes) are limited in frequency and spatial coverage, which calls for the
use of multiband arrays. From here we can connect to Lucius Burckhardt’s strollology and electronic freestyle
GPS experimentation. A recent invitation by the HMKV Dortmund (a media art organisation) for a workshop on
strolling read:

Within the frame of the symposium, strolling is going to be examined as an autonomous format. At
the center of attention is space pervaded by immaterial streams of information [40].

Knowledge is not static, obviously, but is itself generated by movement of either observer or observed, relativistically
equal. In this regard we find that

The true locus of reflexion is not the working desk and not the academic chair but transit in time.
Who is moving in this way, can hardly comment on the state of affairs in research and has to develop
a precarious relation to knowledge as possession [49], quoting Dietmar Kamper on pg.29.

This certainly has been facilitated by the fledging of the tools of knowledge production. Owing a great deal
to transistor technology, radio measurement gear can be carried around with little effort. Projects like Howse’s
“scrying”, nanotube transceivers and intermediate miniaturization stages strongly hint at organized large scale
distributed measurement or even movement replaced by spatially dense populations of such devices.
The complex event “GPS” happens in protocol space, but plotting of the invisible landscape can clearly be an
aim in sniffing [22, 4, 18]. Particularly interesting is a project by Wolfgang Friese for examining buried under-
ground structures, based on different propagation conditions of LF waves in areas of different material and hence,
conductive quality with applications to non-invasive archaeology. Interestingly enough, he uses the DCF77 fre-
quency normal and time signal, emanating from Germany’s Mainflingen transmitter site [18]. This approach
recycles the signal’s purpose in a parasitic twist. While radio signals are used to map material objects in this
case, “Ethermapping”, an artistic endeavour by New Zealand artist Zita Joyce uses bureaunomic data to map
radio-activity in the area around Auckland [50], pg.174. The companion piece “Tales of the Ether” emphasizes
the radioshpere’s cairotic moment, time-varying propagation conditions (soil salinity, atmospheric conditions) and
temporally confined source activity.

13
An early example of an electronic instrument and simple spatial mapping device is Lev Theremin’s famous machine.
It not only employs a field-based interface but uses this field within a radio-oscillator circuit. The theremin in its
original form was only possible due to application of the heterodyning principle, in order to relate material qualities,
the orders of magnitude of the elements involved and a particular part of the frequency spectrum, ultimately, the
LF band. The theremin is one of the most ingenious oscillatory apparatuses, radio without compromise.
Practically, the frequency relations mean this: anything in the VLF frequency range really only needs to be
amplified and put onto a loudpspeaker for the data to reach our ears. In turn, anything above 20kHz, more
practically above 12–15 kHz (for most ears) needs additional treatment. One easy way to achieve the transfer of
these higher frequency ranges is the use of mixing and consequent filtering of the sidebands. A demonstration of
this technique will be given in the examples section below.
All the radio based methods for navigation, detection and ranging are inseparably tied to time, the transit time
of wave-fronts. Waves, and bearing them, oscillations in turn can be argued into identity with time. Analogically,
this holds for rotation, macroscopic and microscopic, again a spatial operation. This is the nexus of a discourse
evoked by Aristotle, Ritter, Ampère, N. Kozyrev and Rössler among others as well as that of time-critical media
processes so prominent in SO22. It is a pointer towards manipulability of time itself. This medium, more than
any antecedent, sharpened, and continues to do so, our senses of space and time.

In 2006 an exhibition was staged in Riga, Latvia, by the Centre for new media culture RIXC titled ’Waves -
Electromagnetic waves as material and medium for arts’ which aimed at re-initializing a discourse about art &
technology,

. . . , considerung the materiality on which the work was based. In our analysis we came to two
fundamental layers, as we called it, waves and code [50].

This conclusion is in accordance with the view of several authors, stating, for example, that

Alternating current is the ’essence’ of technical media - or rather: it would be the ’essence’, if alter-
nating current as a purely differential principle would not a priori detract itself from any constitutional
metaphysics [37], pg. 308,

and pointing at the heritage of the epistemology of alternating currents as Wolfgang Hagen does in “Alternating
currents and Ether”. He strengthens Tesla and his eminent contribution to alternating current knowledge by
extrapolating back from Fessenden via his engineer Alexanderson and theoretician Charles Steinmetz [19].
Every sensor is a sniffer by enabling the transition from one phenomenological domain into another, by converting
non-electrical magnitudes to electrical ones. But if we looked very close at how this conversion takes place, we
would reexperience how deeply the electromagnetic force is at work in the fabric of reality. Or more accurately,
in our model of all that.
This alternating current is the element we use in tying together electromagnetic and mechanic vibrations. Armin
Medosch gives a crisp introduction to experimental radio culture in the catalogue of this exhibition. Starting by
demanding this new discourse, he invokes a series of historic characters to illustrate the indeed amazing change
in phantasizing the world which the discovery of electromagnetism brought about, among them the dream of
instantaneous worldwide communication and concludes with the

concept of WAVES: . . . some artists simply shifting away from radio waves as carriers of apparently
meaningful “signals” and turning their attention to the medium, the signals, the waves themselves [50],
pg.18.

He states, that “radio is an experience of displacement”. As much an experience of displacement as an experience

of distant times. Only that our natural temporal sense does not become aware of that easily or unless considering
astronomical distances. In that sense, all EM-signals are archaeological signals and sniffing is a form of enacted
archaeology, again most obvious in radio astronomy.
Let us now plunge into a list of works either featured in the exhibition or related to its curational vector.

14
There is Franz Xavers RT03 project, consisting of a stationary 3 m dish antenna, the receiver tuned to the resonant
frequency of hydrogen, about 1400 MHz. The systems output is played back straightforwardly in realtime as an
internet audio stream. Xaver points out an additional aspect about antennas.
The antenna has the properties of an old-fashioned object or sculpture but also serves as a device,
which allows us to access Hertzian space. [50], pg.19.
The antenna accomplishes its interfacial duties by fractally unfolding into R3 . This forces us to think about
generic objects as antennas, which Xaver does along with Waves-contributor Joyce Hinterding and it diverts our
pointer back towards biological interactions.
For Hinterding, antennas in themselves have important sculptural implications because they demon-
strate via electromagnetic induction —“the most extraordinary concept”—that “everything is active;
all materials are active”. She had earlier become interested in incorporating sound into her work be-
cause resonance and sympathetic vibrations in sound exemplified “what exists between things rather
than things” [25].
Acknowledgement of this pervasive activity in the environment, exemplified by telegraph wires and fences, already
covering space in the pre-radio era, utilized by Thomas A. Watson, allow for a redefinition of the approach so far
promoted. This ubiquitous activity can be regarded as objects doing sniffing, without a listener or other spectator,
enabling “gather that which is” become a “do that which is done”. “It tempers the conceit that humans are the
authors of radio, and it opens the technology to the environment” [25].
Another intruiging piece is the WIFI CAMERA OBSCURA. This work uses a low-cost cantenna type directional
antenna on a motor-controlled tripod to record an image of its field of vision in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, which
brings the optical analog mode of perception very close again.
An exceptionally acute contribution, subtitled “Using radio to make sense of our universe”, comes from researcher
and artist Honor Harger.
Radio has, in effect, created an electromagnetic ’portrait’ of our world. We can not only look at this
portrayal, but by employing the very technology which Marconi and Tesla brought into being, we can
also listen [50], pg. 160.
Harger is involved with the programmatic experimentation collective radioqualia, who, among many other forays
into alternate modes of radio enactment, have focussed on radio astronomy and its relation to sound. One of
their recent projects, aridly named “radio astronomy” [33], is akin to Franz Xaver’s “RT03” in principle but the
data is pulled from separately operated receiver stations. The movement clearly exposes “radio” as a vast and
rather uncharted territory, a radio programme even, but programmed only marginally by humans and shows how
the pieces fit together.
The work of McGreevy, Stammes, and other radio hobbyists who work with natural radio resonates
with an eminent branch of physics, which also utilizes radio to monitor natural phenomena. Radio
astronomy, the study of celestial phenomena at radio wavelengths, was invented after the accidental
discovery of cosmic radiation by radio engineer Karl Jansky in 1933 [21], pg.466.
And beyond more articulate sources, the cosmic noise-floor is teeming with promises while COBE is up and
listening.
Martin Howse’s “scrying” is another remarkable approach to heightened spectral awareness, while transcending a
purely passive defintion of sniffing. Connecting to alchemist and magic practices it is nothing less than a com-
prehensive micro-controller based sniffing suite, modular and low-cost, covering anything from spectral waste and
byproducts to radio astronomy but essentially being an open spatial computing platform. The system is conceived
mainly as an infrastructure for artistic production and consists of several modules, small circuit boards carrying
out different measurement, communication, storage and processing functions [23].

If not obvious, it has to be added that this is by no means a complete survey on artistic works employing
electromagnetique techniques and considerations. A whole branch of experimental music has been left out for
example. For a more thourough approach to covering the field, [50] may be used a starting point.

15
3.2 Hands on examples
To illustrate our case further, we want to finally delve into a few hands-on experiments. In a very simple case, no
dedicated hardware is required. Rather, its a technique of using a standard radio receiver, maximally detuning it
in one of the AM bands and considering spatial movement or specific high energy phenomena (lightning). The
unintentional part of radio phenomena is already embodied in such a device. SuperCollider code for heterodyning
(filtering and ring-modulation) is essentially:

( // single-channel version until smarter solution

SynthDef("DiskinMono", {|bufnum = 0, freq = 1000,
rq = 0.25, mfreq = 0, fftbuf = 0, ffreq = 0.5, amp = 1.0|
var in, chain, outsig, shft;
var str = DiskIn.ar(1, bufnum, 0);
chain = FFT(fftbuf, str);
chain = PV_Cutoff(chain, ffreq); // High Pass filtering
outsig = IFFT(chain);
shft = outsig * SinOsc.ar(mfreq, pi/2); // Amplitude modulation
Out.ar(0, shft * amp);
}).writeDefFile;
)

and is provided in usable context together with this text either locally2 or here [3].

3.2.1 Experiment 1
The radio receiver is a Supertech WR-004 receiver. It is tuned to short-wave at ca. 5.8 MHz, where under
unspecific conditions no audio is detectable. This works, because many emissions are spectrally broad and turn
up throughout many bands. An alternative run tuned to 800kHz already gives slightly different results but is
omitted from presentation here. The receiver is connected to a Zoom H2 digital audio recorder, recording at
96kHz sampling rate. We use this high rate for looking more comprehensively at our detecting system’s output.
We first notice that the output levels of the radio receiver indeed seem lowered in the band above 20 kHz. Since
we realistically only hear signals up to something like 12 kHz, this is of course no direct drawback when regarding
the unmediated audito frequency range. Visting a couple of electric devices in our immediate surroundings we
already get a feel of the possibilities of such an approach. What becomes immediately evident is how unsurprisingly
well metallic systems embedded in the building like heating and electricity wires amplify fields adjacent to the
structure, that is, where no audio-channel could be heard standing in the middle of the room, suddenly music and
a lot of other noises appear when approaching the heater.

1. 20081017-we-heizung-01.wav3 , approaching the heater.

2. 20081017-we-LCD-clock.wav4 , receiver with a few centimeters of the microwave’s LCD clock display.
3. 20081017-we-LCD-sps.wav5 , receiver close to LCD computer display and a switching mode power supply.
4. 20081017-we-DECT-dsl.wav6 , operational LF noises from the DECT base-station.

This setup also works as a close-range lightning detector which announce themselves as short impulses, stretching
over a good part of the spectrum, testable when a lightning storm is occuring right overhead.
As an intermediate step we will consider a special setup of sorts, consisting of a simple field-meter. This is
an ammeter, with one pole of a dipole connected to each meter terminal, connected by a GE-diode, available
2 EM-Sniffer-NRT.sc
3 20081017-we-heizung-01.wav
4 20081017-we-LCD-clock.wav
5 20081017-we-LCD-sps.wav
6 20081017-we-DECT-dsl.wav

16
for example as a microwave radiation warning device Voltcraft MT-128. When this device is placed directly on
the antenna bit of the DECT base station, it gives sufficient movement of the pointer, which, as a side-effect, is
transduced to sound by the mechanic activity, recorded via a piezo-pickup and microphone amplifier. Arrangement
shown in Figure 1 and listenable via 20081020-piezo-feldstaerke-dect-station-mono.wav7 .

Figure 1: Arrangement for piezoelectrical pickup of field strength meter noises. The piezo is attached to the
back of the meter.

3.2.2 Experiment 2
Having shown whats possible with such a simple setup, we switch over to something technically even more simple
although requiring some soldering in practical application. Amplifiers. One device used in these experiments is
the 3-stage amplifier by Burkhard Kainka, presented in [26]. In the recording sessions, two of these devices have
been used. One equipped with a monopole antenna, the other with a small coil antenna. Straight wires tend to
be more receptive to the electrical field component whereas coils react to the magnetic part, see above.
A second device used is the so called “HF-Sniffer” which AATiS e.V. provides as a kit via their website [15]. This
circuit is based on the MAX4000 logarithmic amplifier chip series and is sensitive over the range from 100 MHz
to 2,5 GHz. There is a big difference in in how these two devices operate in relation to our hearing range. The LF
part of the spectrum goes through a direct oscillatory coupling, the HF part only relates to us the LF components
of the HF signals, that is, amplitude variations, especially from pulsed transmissions. Demodulation takes place
in part on the electronics side as well as in the auditory system itself, if the speaker would reproduce frequencies
above our hearing range. The HF-Sniffer has been equipped with dipole antennas tailored to 900 MHz and 2.4
GHz wavelengths.
First, the indoor route already travelled by the AM receiver is repeated. Afterwards an urban outdoor EM-scape
will be examined.
In many of the samples taken in the LF-range, the magnetic part, that is, the right channel, seems more interesing.
Listening on headphones gives increased detail.
20081020-lf-em-computer-hd-LCD-sps.wav8 : Here the antennas are moved over the desktop area. They are
being passed over a laptop computer, an external USB hard-drive, its power supply and finally over the laptop’s
switching power supply. Articulations of specific fields can be clearly made out.
20081020-lf-em-DECT.wav9 : A short sample where antennas are brought close to a DECT phone base-station.
7 20081020-piezo-feldstaerke-dect-station-mono.wav
8 20081020-lf-em-computer-hd-LCD-sps.wav
9 20081020-lf-em-DECT.wav

17
Figure 2: On the right, the HF-Sniffer in casing with the two dipole antennas used in the measurements, on
the left two LF-amplifiers with coil and straight wire antennas.

20081020-lf-em-DSL-modem-various-angles.wav10 : A longer example of the sniffer moved around within a

distance of ca. 50cm from a Lucent Cellpipe DSL modem. If we look at the spectrum of the recording in Figure
3, we notice some interesting looking figures in the upper half of the spectrum.
Now we will make use of the mixing technique mentioned above. First, the lower half of the spectrum is silenced
with an FFT based highpass filter. Then the remaining signal will be multiplied samplewise with a pure sinewave of
24kHz. This will give us two sidebands, one at the sum and one at the difference of the participating frequencies.
Since after filtering the lowest frequency left over from the original resides at 24kHz, the lower sideband will
be moved into the lower half of the spectrum. Looking at the result, we also notice how the upper sideband
resides top-down in the upper half of the spectrum because of aliasing (20081020-lf-em-DSL-modem-various-
angles.wav-trans-1.aiff11 ).
20081020-lf-em-approach-microwave-and-on.wav12 : Here we listen to what comes out of an active microwave
oven at low frequencies.
In the following the list of different recordings is continued with some annotation on what can be heard.
Domestic HF scapes give: 20081020-hf-bluetooth-unid-pulse-DECT.wav13 features transmission of a camera
picture file to the PC over bluetooth, overlayed on some DECT noises and and unidentified constant pulsed signal.
20081020-hf-bluetooth-unid-pulse-DECT.wav-trans-1.aiff14 is the same with upper half-spectrum transposed
down by mixing. 20081020-hf-DECT-unid-pulse.wav15 are the last two sounds alone again. 20081020-hf-
unid-pulse-unid-pulses-unreg.wav16 : the same constant pulse again, with more irregular unidentified pulsed
10 20081020-lf-em-DSL-modem-various-angles.wav
11 20081020-lf-em-DSL-modem-various-angles.wav-trans-1.aiff
12 20081020-lf-em-approach-microwave-and-on.wav
13 20081020-hf-bluetooth-unid-pulse-DECT.wav
14 20081020-hf-bluetooth-unid-pulse-DECT.wav-trans-1.aiff
15 20081020-hf-DECT-unid-pulse.wav
16 20081020-hf-unid-pulse-unid-pulses-unreg.wav

18
 Figure 3: Spectrum of movement in DSL modem near field, x-Axis: time (s), y-Axis: frequency (kHz)

Figure 4: Spectrum after down-mixing, Axes as above

noises (possibly TV transmissions). 20081020-hf-unid-wlan.wav17 brings the sound of wireless LAN. 20081021-
hf-lf-anschalten-and-WLAN-frag.wav18 is a longer capture with both HF and LF receivers on the table while
17 20081020-hf-unid-wlan.wav
18 20081021-hf-lf-anschalten-and-WLAN-frag.wav

19
switching on computers.
Taking everything outdoors we are able to snarf the following. 20081021-lf-strasse-01.wav19 is an idle street
scene, soon arrives a tramway car lending these sounds: 20081021-lf-strasse-02-strassenbahn.wav20 , 20081021-
lf-strasse-03-strassenbahn-passing.wav21 . Later on we notice structures in the upper band in 20081021-lf-
strasse-04-upper-band-unid.wav22 and 20081021-lf-strasse-05-upper-band-unid.wav23 . Again we transpose
the signal in 20081021-lf-strasse-04-upper-band-unid.wav-trans-1.aiff24 and 20081021-lf-strasse-05-upper-
band-unid.wav-trans-1.aiff25 .
The same route again as heard through a different spectral window of sensitivity. In 20081021-hf-GSM-BS.wav26
we hear the unrelenting whistle of a GSM base-station. Such a base-station emits mainly two kinds of constant
signals, one resulting from the length of the TDMA frame of 4.615 ms thus giving 216.7 Hz, the other resulting
from the inter-timeslot delay giving rise to a frequency of 1.734 kHz. Here we hear the same ubiquitous tones
moved slightly in the background in 20081023-hf-04-background-GSM.wav27 . When moving in the street,
shadows from houses and other structures in the propagation area of the base-station can be clearly made out.
This is the case in the hf-GSM-BS recording. In 20081023-hf-05-unid-blip-sequence-short.wav28 we can hear
4 short blips of unidentified provenience with seemingly constant inter-blip delay of about 10.18 seconds. This
signal could only be picked up in specific areas of town. In 20081023-hf-06-GSM-BS-1734-30-45.wav29 the
two tones reappear as also shown by the spectrogram in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Spectrogram of a fragment of "static" GSM base-station signal. Clearly visible are base frequencies
at 216 and 1734 Hz.
19 20081021-lf-strasse-01.wav
20 20081021-lf-strasse-02-strassenbahn.wav
21 20081021-lf-strasse-03-strassenbahn-passing.wav
22 20081021-lf-strasse-04-upper-band-unid.wav
23 20081021-lf-strasse-05-upper-band-unid.wav
24 20081021-lf-strasse-04-upper-band-unid.wav-trans-1.aiff
25 20081021-lf-strasse-05-upper-band-unid.wav-trans-1.aiff
26 20081021-hf-GSM-BS.wav
27 20081023-hf-04-background-GSM.wav
28 20081023-hf-05-unid-blip-sequence-short.wav
29 20081023-hf-06-GSM-BS-1734-30-45.wav

20
Finally some samples from rural areas. There, background signals change significantly and rarely anything marked
will appear. Noise and faint hums predominate. One example is 20081018-lf-monopole-gr-buckowsee-frag1-
1.wav30 , recorded in the woods surrounding the Grossen Buckowsee north of Berlin. An autobahn ran along the
area in about 1–2 km distance.

3.2.3 Experiment 3
For a low-cost desktop based sniffing method we borrow from the procedure described in [16]. Using a suchly
modified bt878-based tuner-card and a simple coil antenna as given in [42] we capture an unspecific signal of
448kHz bandwidth and listen to an ascending sequence of segments through that band of measuring ca. 20 kHz
in breadth.

Figure 6: Spectrogram of the 448kHz band captured with a bt878 based tuner card.

The combined ELF, SLF, VF (Voice Frequency) bands would deserve extra attention as there is much information
embedded in a quite narrow band, including the power grid’s SLF emanations but also products of many natural
(terrestrial and astronomical) phenomena. For reasons of space we will nonetheless only carry out our rigid inves-
tigative bandsweep. A few particularly eventful clippings are the undisplaced audio frequency bit from the original
20081024-SDR-bt878-01.wav31 , and segments starting at 44800 (20081024-SDR-bt878-01.wav-trans-02-
96.wav32 ), 156800 (20081024-SDR-bt878-01.wav-trans-07-96.wav33 ) and 179200 (20081024-SDR-bt878-
01.wav-trans-08-96.wav34 ) Hz respectively. The last one rudimentarily uncovers Deutschlandradio Kultur on
177 kHz.
There are hints of wide-scale, especially computer-based, reception practices of signals in all of the LF spectrum
(ELF, SLF, ULF and VLF) as it is readily available with any computer featuring a sound input device. Anything
above requires extra hardware simply speaking. There are varying defintions of all these bands, but LF here shall
30 20081018-lf-monopole-gr-buckowsee-frag1-1.wav
31 20081024-SDR-bt878-01.wav
32 20081024-SDR-bt878-01.wav-trans-02-96.wav
33 20081024-SDR-bt878-01.wav-trans-07-96.wav
34 20081024-SDR-bt878-01.wav-trans-08-96.wav

21
mean generally frequencies in the range from 0 to a few hundred kilohertz. These hints line up nicely of course
with the general idea of radio sniffing.

4 Concluding remarks
From the promising quick results above a couple of different steps propose themselves immediately.
• Refinement of the recording chain,
• and related to that, refinement of antennas. For example, using directional ones like log-periodic arrays and
other types will certainly increase accuracy of mapping.
• Use of an external mixer in computer setups.
• A host of alternative amplifier and receiver designs is waiting to be employed and tested.
• The use of stationary, spatially distributed systems along with temporally extended or continous observations
suggests itself, complementing mobile sniffers and high-end measurement efforts.
We have seen that the electro- and magneto-sphere changes significantly from urban to rural areas and even
within the urban, that is, techno-energetical densely populated domains, there exists a highly differentiated and
dynamic environment mostly excluded from everyday experience. Examples of electromagnetic signal-generators
or electromagnetically active structures are simply myriads, going from subatomic and atomic entities, to all
sorts of microwave-resonant objects both natural and technical (here and throughout the text already adopting
a distinction for rethorical purposes), to global and planetary processes out into space and siderial em-activity.
Iterating techno-cultural objects alone appears to be an infinite endeavour already, but they may be categorically
subsumed under electronic wireless communication and probing systems such as mobile telephony, security and
access control systems (EAS, Airport security), radar, broadcasting, WiFi, carlocks, IR-remotes, RFID, Bluetooth,
Zigbee and so forth. All of these for sure have strong mid-term political or social implications and if they can’t
be miniaturized away it is still tried to hide them from public perception. So, besides its relevance for natural
research in the astro-, geo- and biophysical directions, there is mounting motivation to come to terms with
electromagnetism in more direct ways, since it is such a major player in contactless object identification, tracking,
classification and control technologies.
It could be hoped for, that increasing availability of open handheld computer platforms might give radio-awareness
a push. Looking at projects like http://www.rjdj.me, these kinds of input are going to be part of Tomorrow’s
ipod- and mobile-based music dissemination culture. More field sensors in NG mobiles, more interactive music,
convergence with more general purpose mobile handheld computers.
In entertainment media terms, sniffing is a way of making a medium where none is, in technical and epistemological
terms, the medium is vast and sensitivity and selectivity are key to running successful perceptual processes on
certain aspects of reality.
Nonetheless, the view on the entirety of the oscillatory spectrum and the sites of transitions from one oscillating
domain into another should be pulled to the center recurrently. The classic antenna as one such transitory spot,
the radio-nanotube which “directly” turns electromagnetic into mechanical vibration another, maybe novel one.
A lot is left open, barely touched and otherwise treated inexhaustively as a matter of volume in all regards:
historical, technical, auditory and experimentally. Hopefully brief contact with a different kind of radio discourse
and low-cost experimentation could be established, as well as the close relationship technique and discourse
entertain with sound could be pointed out.

4.1 Acknowledgements
A word of thanks is due for Martin Howse, Martin Küntz, Ulrich Berthold, Honor Harger and Martin Schobert for
discussion and inspiration as well as jackd [13], SuperCollider [14], Audacity [39] and baudline [38] which were of
invaluable help in the preparation and processing of materials 35 .
35 blub

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