I decided to setup a dedicated mini server to VLF monitoring.

I purchased a cheap USB Sound card to extend the number of possible Audio inputs. The mini server (an EEEPC) now has two MIC and one LINE inputs so that I should be able to use up to 3 antennae with it.

The setup process should take a couple of days as I already have two antennae (a Mini Whip and a Loop antenna).

I just subscribed to Blitzortung.org monitoring network. It’s a very interesting lightning network made of hundreds of relatively cheap monitoring stations managed by volunteers (like me). The solution uses a VLF double antenna attached to a control board with signal amplifier. The control board also has a GPS for sending real time station position. The antenna has to be double so that it helps calculating the position of the lightning signal. Every info in sent via Internet to a central server that matches all the signal and calculated precisely the lightning positions and draws real time maps.

The link to the main site is: http://www.blitzortung.org
If you want to read more technical info about the solution, the page is this

For Blitzortung I’ll use a double ferrite rods antenna.

So in the “final” version the mini server should have two VLF antennae (MiniWhip + loop) for SID Monitoring and one (Ferrite Rod) antenna for Blitzortung.

I hope that the CPU/RAM are enough 😀 The Asus EEEPC is not very new and it only has 1GB RAM. Should be enough.