1 Personal Experience

Even so Wikipedia presents Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity EHS as an unproven claim, it is real enough for people who suffer from this condition. After all, nature has used all kinds of information sources available to let the animals – us – react in the best possible way for survival. It is very reasonable to get tired and hide in a cave, when a thunderstorm is approaching. On the other hand, if a beamer in a meeting creates a similar field, falling asleep is not appreciated. Furthermore, I have difficulties to keep my eyes straight. And no, it’s not just the flicker. I am really grateful for the development of LCD screens, since the old tube monitors also disturbed me and big LCDs are even replacing the beamers in meeting rooms. A great development!

On the other hand, there also seem to be fields that keep me awake or let me sleep deeply and wake up in a condition quite similar to a hangover.

I am aware, that the majority of the population apparently adapted to the modern life and got mostly insensitive to such fields. Lucky for you! You don’t need to continue reading. If you or a member of your family has similar issues, I may have some interesting clues for you.

I cannot tell whether other people will be sensitive to the same kind of fields. Actually, it even seems like there is something like an allergy against a certain pattern that builds up after spending an extended amount of time in one place (like my desk). Yet I hope that my tricks may work for you too.

I am not talking about the earth fields that can be found by dowsing but rather about the fields that are usually generated by the atmosphere and which are now created in over-abundance by technical means. Dowsing is another story. I cannot do it even so I tried it once. Yet I directly feel the effects of some atmospheric fields on my body. I can imagine that there is some truth in dowsing. For instance, when a dowser is looking for a water vain for a well, he is doing triangulation of the fields from different directions. That makes sense from a technical point of view. So, I ask myself: “Why should they apply sensible techniques if it’s all nonsense.” Yet it’s not my field of expertise.

2 Field studies

It is not a hobby and I don’t claim that it’s science. If I cannot sleep or if I cannot work I have to find a solution. I am presenting these solutions to you for consideration and as hints what you may try. On the other hand, your contributions are very welcome. So, I thought I should turn it into a project and I invite anyone to join.

2.1 A monster in the basement

I have not been able to sleep in my bedroom in the second floor for years and I couldn’t figure out the cause. Adjusting the electric grid e.g. plucking a power supply into a socket changed the situation a bit but didn’t result in any permanent solution. This solution only arose when I discussed electromagnetic compatibility and ground loops with Ermanno Antonelli in connection with my main project, the solar tracker. Ground loops are basically electromagnetic oscillators that build up in unexpected places in circuit board when capacitive elements (layers of the board) combine with inductive elements such as circuit lines. Suddenly I realized that I had such a ground loop network in my basement in the form of heavy duty shelves which are built up from steel elements and wooden boards. As a first attempt to dampen oscillations I had connected them to ground much earlier. This apparently didn’t solve the issue and may even have made things worse. Adding 200 Ohms resistors to the ground line made all the difference. Ever since I have been sleeping well.

This absolutely makes sense from a technical point of view. If you just connect structures to ground you still don’t dampen any oscillations. Only the oscillation modes will change. You can compare this with an acoustic tube that will allow different modes if you keep the end open or close it. If you want no oscillations, you need to stuff cotton into it. Here, the 200 Ohms resistor replaces this cotton.

The value of 200 Ohms has been a recommendation from my father Helmut Loeckenhoff in the first place. It seems like EHS is running in the family and he has found the same solution in the 1980s. Some things need to be reinvented and it is always worthwhile to ask the wise guys in your elders’ generation.

200-400 Ohms seem to be a typical value but depending on the specific case, other values may be better. Rather than exchanging resistors, I now got a couple of 10k logarithmic potentiometers and I just keep adjusting them until I achieve the best result.

Up until now, I have tried to get rid of large metal members in my surroundings. I am not sure whether this was the best tactics. You could also see them as a chance to collect electromagnetic fields and to pass them into a wire with a resistor and shungite (see below) for dampening purposes. If you don’t have metal, there is nowhere to connect those wires. I am not quite sure about this question yet. My father Helmut Loeckenhoff had tried similar solutions which also included inductivities in the 1980s.

2.2 Shungite at work

At work, my desk is in an open plan office that makes excessive use of steel elements in the acoustic damper ceiling and the tables are also constructed from steel elements. Together with the heaters, there are lots of metal pieces that combine to a network that supports various oscillation modes. I am actually feeling the nodes of these oscillations and I tried to get away from them by shifting my chair by half a meter in this direction or that. Again, this was no permanent solution.

One thing I tried was spreading shungite around my chair, a mineral from Russia which is basically “extra hard coal”. It has historically been used to fend of bad influences and it is now being sold to protect against EHS. This makes sense, it is an amorphic, electrically conductive structure with a certain internal resistivity: Cotton in the tube, again.

I attached it underneath the table and behind me in the file cabinet. This produced mixed results.

I also tried the trick described in the last chapter by connecting the steel supports of the tables to ground with wires through potentiometers but I couldn’t find a setting where the disturbance disappeared completely.

Still dissatisfied, I applied a piece of shungite to each wire along with the resistive potentiometer and suddenly things where much better. My guess is, that shungite and thin film resistors dampen different frequencies which were both present in this place. The shungite couldn’t really do its work when it was just lying around. The pieces probably did dampen the electromagnetic field locally but the effect was too small. The wires between the steel structures and ground (the heater pipe) now concentrate the electric field and consequently the shungite can be much more effective in these high field regions.

The shungite isn’t in electric contact with the cable. The electromagnetic coupling seems to be enough. Ermanno Antonelli compared this concept to a ferrite ring core and suggested drilling a hole in the Shungite and feed the cable through it. I didn't try that yet since the shungite at the side of the cable works well enough. Of course I also added shungite to the metal shelf in the basement.

2.3 A sleeve

A new electric cable inside a cable canal caused troubles in my house. People with EHS may know this situation: Be careful with new installations once you feel alright. I couldn’t possibly connect a power cable to ground with a resistor, so I looked for another trick.

My father Helmut Loeckenhoff had experimented with various electric field dampers in the 1980s. He actually asked his colleagues in the satellite development for help and they basically said: “We cannot possible know whether all this EHS is sane, but if it existed, this is what we would do…” or ”Your concept makes some sense, these would be resistive values to try.”.

Now, one of his concepts was based on a coaxial cable where half of the shielding is removed.

The exposed end acts as an antenna and together with the sleeve and a resistor between the shield and the core it forms a damped resonator that may consume fields in certain frequency ranges. If you want to try it, start with a length of 8 cm (4.4) and a resistive value of 200-400 Ohms. Your may have to build several versions and find the one that works best for you.

Now I planned to transform the cable that gave me troubles into such a damped resonator.

First, I wrapped adhesive aluminum tape around a 1.5m section of the cable. Now, my plan would have been to connect the protective ground line of the cable to the sleeve. Yet I was surprised to find out, that this wasn’t even necessary. I didn’t feel any disturbance any more. So, I left it as it was.

Apparently, even the short piece of coaxial sleeve prevented a “signal” to run along the line as it was reflected by the transition from normal to shielded cable. I thus suppressed the mode that gave me troubles.

This shows us that some trial and error is unavoidable. I wonder whether I should count myself lucky, that I am sensitive enough to feel the changes immediately.

2.4 A fence around your bed

Putting a wire around a bed is a common recommendation for EHS people. It didn’t really work for me. From a technical point of view, a single loop of wire is nowhere close to a Faraday cage and even a Faraday cage doesn’t fend of evanescent magnetic fields. You would need special µ-metal shielding tape for that purpose.

Now again I applied the findings from my earlier successes and introduced two resistors of 200 Ohms in this wire. The position of the resistors is NOT symmetrical which is intentional. After all, we don’t want to build a resonator but we want to destroy it. Two resistors would still leave modes of ½, ¼, ¹/₆ wavelength etc. that can be supported by the wire. With the asymmetric placement of the resistors, any mode that can still be supported would be a coincidence. And of course, again I attached pieces of shungite. I also added some basalt following the recommendation of my father. I am not sure that it is necessary but it also wont hurt. Basalt is a structure with a lot of amorphous cavities. Maybe it is yet another kind of “cotton” that we can stuff into our tube. A few grams is enough for each piece of rock. All that stuff nicely fits into the frame of your bed, so it looks clean and no questions will be asked when you have guests.

2.5 Boxwood hedge

No joke! As I said, the sensitivity seems to run in the family and my parents tried a lot of things while I was a kid. One of the most successful counteractions was a boxwood hedge around the house. Apparently, these absorb harmful radiation in some way. It could be connected to the shape of the randomly arranged leaves. They may be an “electromagnetic cotton” damper too.

Tree of life is another plant that was believed to fend off bad ghosts. Maybe there is a bit of truth in it, if you replace “ghost” by “harmful radiation”. I don’t know. I just want to share this snippet of knowledge too.

2 Where to start

If you suffer from EHS but you don’t feel it as immediately as I do, I suggest that you get a nice supply of wire, shungite (the cheap kind is fine) and 200 Ohms resistors. Go through your house and look for large metal members that you can connect with wires through 200 Ohms resistors. Apply several pieces of shungite to each of these wires in random positions. If you have grounding points available (e.g. heaters) you can connect to those too. Thus, you will extract power from the electromagnetic field and you may dampen the cavity oscillations in your home that give you trouble.

3 Let’s talk

I wonder whether these countermeasures will be helpful to other people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Let me know about your results with my methods and tell me about new tricks I could try.

4 MIT License

I have been using the MIT license for the solar tracker. It is nice, short and clean. Yet it is stretching the meaning of software rather far. Nevermind. My most important point is, that I don’t guarantee that my recommendations are safe. Try them at your own risk and don’t blame me, if you want to sell any product which is based on this document and you find out that it infringes a patent.

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