Your Body is an Antenna

Your body already is an excellent “antenna” — and thus like it or not — your skin is constantly attracting and picking up AC voltages due to the ELF electric fields in the environment around you.  With a body volt meter, you simply measure the level of electrical voltage on your skin, with respect to the earth.  It can be revealing and surprising, to see how much your nearby electrical wiring and power cords can affect you.

What is a Body Volt Meter?

A body volt meter is a very simple test meter, which uses a standard electrician’s volt meter, some extra wires, and a ground rod, to measure the AC (alternating) voltage on your skin.  In nature, your AC voltage would be zero.  For thousands of years, until the invention of electricity, it was zero.  Sometimes, this kind of test set-up is also called a “skin voltage meter”.

Why Measure ELF Electric Fields?

The health effects from ELF electric fields have not been studied nearly as well as the effects of ELF magnetic fields and radio frequency fields.  But there is a lot of anecdotal evidence from individuals about a wide variety of adverse health effects related to electric fields.  And also of great significance, electric fields are the main transport mechanism that actually helps dirty electricity signals (in the wiring) to be delivered through the air and to your skin.  In general, the lower the body voltage measurement, the less any DE from the wiring is actually getting out to your body.

Various Ways to Measure Electric Fields

There are a variety of ways to measure the electric fields.  Some meters have a small sensor antenna located inside the meter itself, and thus they can only measure the electric field at that small point in space. This is a point-source detector vs a whole body detector.  The problem with point-source detectors, is that your body can interfere greatly with the measurements, because the entire surface of your body is an antenna.  In contrast, a body voltage meter takes advantage of the body’s antenna effect, and uses your own body as the sensor antenna for the measurement.  (Note: When you test with a body volt meter, you do not add to your electric field exposure, you just measure it directly.)

Why We Recommend Using a Body Volt Meter

Like it or not, your body is a very effective “human antenna”.  Your body’s entire skin surface constantly picks up AC (alternating) voltages from the ELF (extremely low frequency) electric fields in the environment.  A Body Voltage Meter can directly measure how much of this voltage you are actually receiving from sources such electrical wiring, computers, lamp cords, power lines and other nearby electrical devices.  Body volt testing (also called skin volt testing) is the most sensitive, accurate and helpful method available to detect electric fields.  This is a very important measurement, especially for anyone who is electrically sensitive.

Ground Rod in the Earth (Highly Recommended)

To get accurate, reliable and sensitive measurements, we strongly recommend that you use a Body Voltage Meter with a long grounding wire that goes to a special dedicated ground rod inserted into the earth.  When driven into the soil outside the building, this ground rod provides the most accurate “zero volt” reference needed for your testing.  Less accurate body voltage meters will use the electrical system grounding – for instance from an electrical outlet in the wall – which can lead to substantial measurement errors because the grounding of the electrical system is often contaminated with “dirty” stray voltages..

Ordering a Body Volt Meter

We recommend that you always purchase a Body Volt Meter that is the type with a long grounding wire, and a special dedicated ground rod that you can insert into the earth outside the building.  These are sometimes called “with ground stake” or “with ground rod”.  Sometimes you will need to order extra parts.  For example, if the ground stake version only comes with 20 feet of ground wire, you may need to order several more pieces of 20 foot ground wire extensions, so that you have enough length to run the ground wire from the test meter in the room, out the window or door to the earth rod outside.  The ground stake itself usually only needs to be about 8 inches long to function.

An Essential Tool for Analyzing Your Actual Exposure to Dirty Electricity

Most people do not realize that when they use a standard dirty electricity (DE) test meter (like the Stetzer and Greenwave meters), that they are only measuring the amount of DE on the wiring system itself.  Unfortunately, standard DE meters cannot tell you how much the DE signals are actually getting out of the wiring, traveling through the air, and reaching your body.  Thankfully, body volt testing can help indicate how much that DE is actually reaching your body.  This is because the main way that the DE signals are carried from the wires to your skin, is via the ELF electric fields that are emitted from the wiring.  If the electric fields are low, the DE delivery to you is low.  If the electric fields are strong, the DE delivery is also strong.

You Can Make Your Own Body Volt Meter

Free PDF Available: Yes, you can do-it-yourself, save money, and make your own Body Voltage Meter!  We provide complete written instructions on how to build your own Body Volt Meter, using a standard electrician’s digital volt meter and some simple electrical parts from a hardware or building supply store.  “Click here to go to our “How to Make Your Own Body Voltage Meter” page.

Meters to Avoid

Regardless of the cost, we generally don’t recommend any electric field meters with an internal antenna (the alternative to the body voltage approach), because voltages on your skin can and will interfere greatly with the measurement process.  Also, this kind of meter can only measure the electric fields at a single point in space (where the meter is held), and cannot tell you how the electric fields interact and add up over the entire surface of your body (how much AC voltage is actually on your skin).  For example, even in you take 100 measurements around your bed with a very expensive professional meter that uses an internal antenna, you will always be guessing about how much total voltage is on your skin/body as a result.  Therefore, we recommend Body Volt Meters as the best method for detecting electric fields.