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Closure of the Electrum Project
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From: Bill Wysock [SMTP:wysock-at-ttr-dot-com]
Sent: Monday, June 01, 1998 11:49 AM
To: Tesla List
Cc: Wysock, William C.
Subject: Re: Closure of the Electrum Project
To Greg and the gang at LOD:
Congratulations! It sounds like you had some very formidable
handicaps to overcome in your treck to NZ! Does Murphy
go by the same rules of chaos as "he" does on this side of
the Equator? ; ) The photos you put up on your web site looked
great. It was nice to read that the locals there were so talented
and capable of helping with Electrum's "final resting place." I
look forward to seeing more photos of some of the ground
strikes you mentioned in your post! After your tools return
from "down under," I'll bet you're ready to launch into you next big
project. Hummmm....let's see.....I wonder what it could be?
Best regards,
Bill Wysock.
> To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> Subject: Closure of the Electrum Project
> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 00:31:08 -0500
> From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>
> ----------
> From: Greg Leyh [SMTP:lod-at-pacbell-dot-net]
> Sent: Saturday, May 30, 1998 4:30 PM
> To: Tesla List
> Subject: Closure of the Electrum Project
>
> Hi All,
>
> Here's a summary of the final installation effort at the NZ site.
>
> First off NZ is a cool place, a country of 3 million inventors
> and 60 million sheep. I don't recall meeting a single person
> there that I would have considered dull, except perhaps at the
> customs offices. It is now clear to me as to why NZ is so well
> represented on the TC list.
>
> Our only major problem was getting the 40' shipping container
> through Customs -- we were declaring the contents as a sculpture
> (12.5% tax), however the customs official said that in searching
> the container, no sculpture was found, only electrical switchgear
> and equipment (32.5% tax).
> The container was cleared after 6 days of tense negotiations.
>
> The install went without a hitch, using a team of highly adept
> farm workers and digger operators to erect the tower and
> install the switchgear virtually on the side of a cliff!
>
> Tuning values for coil onsite came very close to the Hunters Point
> numbers, about 37.9kHz. The Q of the sec (without breakout) was
> about the same as well, maybe slightly better than SF, indicating
> that the re-bar in the concrete vault walls produce no significant
> current loops.
>
> The earth grounding array worked better than expected, with a
> measured ground resistance of only 0.44 ohm! This may be due
> in part to the fact that ground array elements inadvertently
> cut through an array of septic tank irrigation lines.
>
> The coil is able to digest the 400V 50Hz from the substation
> with no apparent ill effects. However, the video camera monitor
> for the central manway picks up too much 50Hz noise during operation,
> trashing the sync pulses. Shielding a CCD camera placed in the
> manway may prove to be difficult.
>
> Occasional strikes to the ground during operation were observed when
> the wind was right. I had not expected ground strikes from this coil
> at all, due to the spherical electrode and the fact that the base of
> the secondary starts 14 feet above ground level! Improved quenching
> due to increasing the effective gap spacing may be responsible. The
> tungsten is also consumed at a quicker rate with wider gap spacing,
> but it's worth it!
> Neither sheep, yaks, nor storks approve of the coil during operation.
> One kiwi couple also joined the "2 Million Volt Club", as well!
>
> I don't have pix of operation in NZ as of yet, though it looks just
> like operation in SF with a different backdrop. One person shot
> some PAL footage there, and we're trying to get a copy (I still
> don't own a video camera!)
>
> New pictures of the install effort can be found at:
> http://www.lod-dot-org/electrum/nzinstall.html
>
>
> -GL
> www.lod-dot-org
>
>
>
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