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Re: Tesla Coil RF Transmitter



Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

"Hi Miles,

Most early radios were basically Tesla coils.  At say 200kHz, the 1/4
wavelength is 1230 feet.  If you put a 1230 foot antenna on your
Tesla coil, it will transmit.  Although real transmitters are far
better matched to the 50 ohm antenna load...  But the key is our
coils have very poor transmitting properties due to being so small
compared to the length of antenna needed for our frequencies of
operation.

Cheers,

         Terry"

	The TC is the transmitter but it's the antenna that radiates.  TC's are
very short helical antennas but as such the radiation is negligible.  If
one were to design a coil for use as a transmitter the inductance would
be selected to resonate with the antenna capacitance if it were "direct
drive" such as Terry suggests.

Ed