Re: Rotary Spark Gap Design

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Rotary Spark Gap Design
From: Richard Hull <hullr-at-whitlock-dot-com>
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 15:12:42 -0700
Tesla List wrote:
> 
> >From MALCOLM-at-directorate.wnp.ac.nzFri May 17 21:51:10 1996
> Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 17:09:58 +1200
> From: Malcolm Watts <MALCOLM-at-directorate.wnp.ac.nz>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: Rotary Spark Gap Design
> Malcolm wrote,
> 
>     One thing I realized yesterday : we are dealing with structures
> that have a VERY low radiation resistance whereas helical antenna
> are designed to have a high radiation resistance (effective radiation)
> and this might well make the difference (what say you Ed Harris?).
> 
> Will post results next week.
> Malcolm


Malcolm,

I have pushed for this about as long as Tesla himself did.  You can't use 
radio theory in its purely developed form for working with Tesla coils.  
The former is related to radiating power into the air as hetrzian 
waves with zero losses (attempted) at the antenna. With Tesla coils, we 
seek 100% of the loss to occur in air at the tip of the 1/4 wave 
transmission line with zero radiated energy (ideal).  Tesla once 
commented that "the radio people are using all of my inventions, only 
BACKWARDS!"

Too much reliance on radio theory without the full an exact understanding 
of the final use to be made of the RF energy, will just help you make a 
good spark gap transmitter instead of a good tesla coil.  The mind must 
focus on the use of all equations backwards to prevent good radiative 
performance!  This is something absolutely foreign to the RF Engineer, 
who is fixed on good radio work.  To him it is all of his knowledge 
placed in a computational effort to produce the worst finished product. 
(raw, 100%, complete loss of signal at the antenna!)

You are starting to see the light in your last paragraph.



Richard Hull, TCBOR