Not again...

Yes folks, the people who advocate the detection of earthquakes is possible using radio propagation are at it again!  Not only that, but they seem to be suggesting they can predict earthquakes (to 'save lives'), suggesting that such a prediction would be so incredibly advanced in time as to allow opportunity for people to be evacuated. 

Whilst the concept is not without some merit, at least inasmuch as it is worthy of investigation, there has been far too much wild assertion without evidence by these people.  I've followed the frequent missives about this 'work' for many years, and I have yet to see anything that can remotely be said to be persuasive.  Indeed, it has all the hallmarks of 'crank science'.  Discussion of the project on QRZ.com has generally been condemnatory and derisive.

The 'project' - said on a ARRL online post to be 'facilitated' By Arizona State University - is said to be led by one Alex Schwarz who amusingly identifes himself in a mass-email this morning as 'Principle [sic] Investigator".  A call for clarification to Arizona SU's press office resulted in no response at the time of updating (29/01/21).

Schwarz also associates his fundraiser with the 'X-Prize'.  There is no evidence that this is an approved X-Prize Foundation project.  The Foundation may well take a dim view of this, and I have approached them this morning for a confirmation/denial of association.

It's no good waiting for an earthquake and then looking to see if there was some change to propagation.  This is bad science.

Instead, a lot of propagation data should be gathered first, and then see if any earthquakes consistently match those changes in propagation.  The null hypothesis is that earthquakes do not cause HF propagation changes.

In any case, the 'team' have now launched a fundraiser at GoFundMe.  Already, in just one day, it has raised, erm, $70 out of the sought $20,000.  $50 of that was given by Schwarz himself, and the other $20 by N2EU, who is given as an 'organiser' of the fundraiser (see screenshot below, accessed 11:00UT 24/01/2021).  

A week later, it's reached the heady heights of $95, thanks to a donation by ON6MU.  Sadly, even he shows up as having strong links to Schwarz.

The .io groups page for the project seems to be filled with nothing other than NOAA solar data on a daily basis by Schwarz himself.  There are no recent responses to these posts from anyone at all.

 A week into the fundraiser (grabbed 09:10UT, 29/01/2021).  Three donations, all either organisers of the project, or related to it.  Erm...

 

UPDATE:  There has been no response from GoFundMe concerning the 'X-Prize' claim and how this may mislead people. Only SciStarter has pledged to examine the use of the 'X-Prize' term, though they have not provided a substantive response as yet (29/01/21).