[wlesieutre]

Oh my. You're not kidding about that.

>Instead, one has to find an area with very low ground conductivity (a requirement opposite to usual radio transmitter sites), bury two huge electrodes in the ground at different sites, and then feed lines to them from a station in the middle, in the form of wires on poles. Although other separations are possible, the distance used by the ZEVS transmitter located near Murmansk is 60 kilometers. As the ground conductivity is poor, the current between the electrodes will penetrate deep into the Earth, essentially using a large part of the globe as an antenna. The antenna length in Republic, Michigan, was approximately 52 kilometers (32 mi).

[Animats]

Radio through the ground was used by radio hams during WWII, because ham radio though the air was prohibited during the war. People would drive two stakes into the ground about 50 feet apart and talk cross-town.

[seiferteric]

I looked into this "earth mode" radio recently and even tried it out in my backyard without too much success. My question is, does the FCC have jurisdiction over this? Seems like it's not really radio so much as making a circuit using the earth as the conductor.

[api]

If the FCC doesn't regulate this could you use this for metro mesh networks? Of course I assume you'd have to be rigorous about avoiding leakage.