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Rochester T'Thon
From: richard hull[SMTP:rhull-at-richmond.infi-dot-net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 1997 7:32 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Rochester T'Thon
All,
I am back after a weekend of Tesla coil fun at the Rochester area Teslathon
held by Ed Wingate.
The rather long 12 hour trip from Richmond began at 6am on Friday. Dave
Sharpe, myself and Kim Goins took Daves nice van up through the mountains of
Virginia and Pennsylvania. The beautiful scenery and glorious weather took
the edge off of the long ride.
Once we arrived and enscounced ourselves in the Brockport Econolodge around
5PM, we drove to Ed's house arriving around 6PM.
The Friday evening pre-rinse in Tesla waters is a tradition started in
Richmond back in 1990 and Ed has been following suit for a few years now. I
was besieged by coilers eager to get at the NeFeB magnets I brought, the ESJ
backissues, electrometers, mendocino motor stuff, books, tapes, etc. At
least 50% of the people to ultimately show up were on hand as Ed fired his
newly re-drivered magnifier coil system. A phenomenal display and joy to
observe as the 11-12 foot white hot ribbons slammed his lab doors!
Dave Sharpe set up and ran his new 1.4KW tube coil system using his own
"level shifted mode" operation. I set up my dirod and electrometer demos
plus an electrostatic motor.
Take out pizza and subs were the bill of fare under the 20'X20' outdoor tent
near Ed's lab as darkness closed in. We all swapped Tesla fish stories and
humor by the light of a coleman lantern.
After the chow, we went back in the lab and chatted and fired coils until
11PM and adjourned.
Saturday, the morning of the Teslathon, Ed joined everyone for breakfast at
the Perkins restaurant and more stories were filtered around. Steve and
Faye Cole were the farthest attendees (drove from California). Steve and I
are real cutups and the roar of laughter is never far from us. I enjoyed
seeing him again. Barry Benson of the TCBOM (Steve Roys group) and Mitch ?
were also there along with Larry Adams of our TCBOR who drove himself and
Barry to the event.
At about 10am, everyone was at Ed's lab and a lot of newcomers were showing
up. The fleamarket was beginning in earnest when Bill Connery showed up.
He is a regular to both Ed's and our annual event. Bill had super hot
radioactive meters, neon sign transformers, capacitors, vacuum diffusion
pumps, and his ever famous glow discharge tubes for sale. I spent over
$100.00 with him!!! Tom Vales and Tony De Angelis of Boston had a large lot
of stuff for sale, also. I bought some lead foil and a Russian geiger
counter from Tom. Folks from this list were there too. Bert Hickman, Skip
Griener, Robert Stephens and others. John Freau showed up with Lou Balint
and sold mint, in box, neon sign transformers. I picked up a nice 6000 volt
120ma GE unit.
Dr. Mark Rezsotarski was there with his interesting and unique 35 watt tube
coil! Not much spark, but tremendous radiation for so little input. The
key to his system was a nice separation of the grid and plate coils with the
tuning in the grid coil! Maybe he will grace us with a description in the
future.
Another Gentleman, whose name now eludes me, set up an incredible display of
huge plasma tubes made by the world renowned Larry Albright (read big, big
bucks!!)
Ed fired his famous twin coil system and the magnifier throughout the day.
Dave and Dr. Mark demoed their tube systems. Chuck Cook showed a
marvelously efficient small standard discharge coil system based on a oil
immersion of the resonator he saw in one of our TCBOR video tapes. His
system was not the half baked assemblage we showed, but a joy to look at and
a superb performer.
Harry Goldman, the "grand old man" and guardian angel of all tesladom was in
attendance with his wife Ruthie. It was a good omen to have Harry on hand.
He always has a lot of good stories and his knowledge of the past is impeccable!
The cookie jar was passed, and all contributed the going rate for chow.
Dinner was served under the tent in the late afternoon. It consisted of
hamburgers, hotdogs and polish sausages, with corn on the cob and other
condiments.
Ed was mindfull of my penchant for IBC root beer and had plenty on hand.
DC Cox of Resonance research showed up right after chow and brought a small
capacitive discharge coil system which he demoed for all.
Rob Stephens and I showed videos of our work on a large monitor in the
evening hours. Rob's twin coil system is a real performer.
Lou Balint brought his large high power rotary gap (still under
construction) and gave a short talk on some of its key features. John
Freau, Dave Sharpe and Mark Rezsotarski had a conclave on tube coiling as
others listened intently.
The evening ended by midnight after Ed firied his large magnifier one more
time. He damaged his extra coil when a wayward spark shorted two turns
(welded) A standby resonator was pressed into service. To constant
harpings by myself and Dave Sharpe, Ed caved in and we put only one 30"
toroid on top of the resonator and replaced the other 30" with the large
65"X12" "super toroid" we saw over in the corner. Ed tuned the thing up in
a single test pass and ultra hot, "stay-connected" ribbons of 12' flame
tried to weld the lab door shut! This was the culmination of a super day of
coilin' and renewal of old friendships and forging of new ones. Names now
had faces!
The trip back to Virginia was smooth, un-eventful, and somewhat
anti-climatic after the thrills of the weekend's previous days.
Richard Hull, TCBOR
Submitted with lotsa' mispells, etc., and unproof read!