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tesla coils & frequency

>>	Now on the tesla coil, my very basic understanding is that the coil
>>is really nothing more than an 'Antenna' wrapped around a pole.
	Thats one way to look at it.

>>And as an Antenna it gives off an RF frequency based upon its capacitance.
	And on its inductance.

>>	Now the RF Spectrum is (according to my basic electronics book):

>>	15Khz to 30Khz		VLF (Very Low Frequency)
>>	30Khz to 300Khz		LF  (Low Frequency)
>>	300Khz to 3MHz		MF  (Medium Frequency)
>>	3MHz to 30MHz		HF  (High Frequency)
>>	30MHz to 300MHz		VHF (Very High Frequency)
>>	300MHz to 3000MHz	UHF (Ultra High Frequency)
>>	3000MHz to 30,000MHz	SHF (Super High Frequency)
	Yup.

>>Since these are all Radio Frequency's.  Can the tesla coil operate
>>in all these Frequencys'?
	A tesla coil can be designed to operate at any frequnvy, in theory.
	In practice one of Dr Corum's students built a 'coil' at 160 odd Mhz,

	Nikola Tesla generally (as near as we can tell) confined himself to
	somewhere under 200 odd KHz.  (It is quite possible to go to the
	hundreds of MHz with spark gap technology.)

>>  Or is there a upper limit to the tesla coil?
	Not that i am aware of.  As a practical matter, the 100s of Khz
	range is easy to work with.

>The Tesla Coil is far more than an antenna.  It is a resonant circuit, the
>resonant frequency of which is determined by the value of the coil in
>henries and the cap in farads,
	Thats one approach to determining the resonant frequncy of a coil.
	My understandaing (Corum & Corum) is that a 'helical resonatr' model
	is closer.

>( more like milihenries and microfarads).  It may also be described as the
>point at which inductive reactance and capacitive reactance are equal.
	In fact, a given 'thing' may have multiple resonant frequencies.  The
	experiences i have seen reported are the resonant-frequency-defined-by
	-helical-resonator math are closest.

>An arc
	Spark.  A Spark and an arc are different things.
	(Roughly: An arc is quasi continuous.  A spark 'stops' then restarts.
	Typically this happens faster than the eye can see, in tesla coil
	work.  It is the need to 'stop' that makes the matter of quenching
	the gap so important.

>as generated by the primary circuit of the tesla coil energizes or "excites"
>the L/C resonant circuit of the secondary, and causes it to oscillate at its
>"resonant frequency.
	Right.  However, a given 'thing' can have multiple resonant frequencies.

	regards
	dwp