Subject: Re: Lightning Generator
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 09:17:19 -0400
From: "Thomas McGahee" <tom_mcgahee-at-sigmais-dot-com>
To: "Tesla List" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
----------
> From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: Lightning Generator
> Date: Monday, May 05, 1997 2:22 AM
>
> Subject: Re: Lightning Generator
> Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 19:17:48 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "Edward V. Phillips" <ed-at-alumni.caltech.edu>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>
>
> " A lightning stroke has a
> fast rise time, it is a RF voltage."
>
> No way! Primarily unipolar with a rise time of a few
> microseconds and a fall time of tens to hundreds.
>
> Ed
Ed,
It is a single polarity, true... but what makes something RF is the
"apparent" frequency of a 1/2 cycle, which of course is a unipolar
definition, is it not? Some Tesla coil builders use a DC supply to
supply raw power to the tank circuit. The gap fires and we call it
RF. And to take it to its extreme, a Tesla coil operated in ONE SHOT
mode only gets a single half cycle of excitation. But it STILL
operates as a resonant RF circuit anyhow.
>From this perspective Malcolm is correct in saying that the lightning
STROKE is RF. BEFORE the lightning strike the potentials involved are
INDEED DC. But with the stroke itself the basic phenomenon changes
radically and is indeed RF. Otherwise it wouldn't mess up the
reception on your AM radio :)
Fr. Tom McGahee