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Re: Is My Revalation Accurate? (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 19:54:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Edward V. Phillips" <ed-at-alumni.caltech.edu>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Is My Revalation Accurate? (fwd)
"Hello,
Since I am a newbie to coiling I've been lurking, generally, and reading up. As
I was getting into
my first book on coiling theory the other night, I realized that what was being
described as a
Tesla Coil was actually a spark gap transmitter of teens/twenties ham radio fame
. If you were to
key the coil and hook the secondary up to a long wire antenna(using a transmatch
would help)
you would be all set up for a night of fun, and highly illegal(since 1931, I thi
nk) hamming! Pretty
much any receiver(no matter what frequency it was tuned into ;^) would be OK, as
long as you had
the volume turned up really high! On a good night, you could hope to DX the guy
across the county
from you, and maybe even a few miles further. All the neighbors, in each directi
on for about 2 blocks,
would know that you're "on the air", as the racket from your spark gap would fil
l(foul?) the summer
nights air about as full as it could get,"
Make that about 1926, and spark was dead much earlier than that.
As for your thoughts, I have often thought it would be interesting if
someone (else!) would organize "spark transmitter night" on which
real afficienados would stay up till about three in the morning and
then fire up their transmitters and have at it. If the event
didn't last too long (and if the gaps were muffled enough not to
fill the night with din) it would be all over before anyone not
"in the know" could figure out what happened. Perhaps once a
year???
Ed