VLF power transmission

• To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
• Subject: VLF power transmission
• From: "jim lux" <jimlux-at-jpl.nasa.gov> (by way of Terry Fritz <twf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
• Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 21:31:42 -0700
• Approved: twf-at-verinet-dot-com

> The key word above is "SEEMED" <to work>.  All of the conditions which
>Tesla imagined have existed since the early 1900's, in the form of
>innumerable low-frequency high-powered transmitters, both spark and CW.
>If ANY of the ground-current effects existed, they'd have been exploited
>long, long ago.  The reason for the construction of gigantic VLF
>transmitters is because the path loss is very high.

Gigantic VLF transmitters because antenna efficiency (on both ends of the
link) is low, not because path loss is high. Actually the path loss is
pretty low for such systems (compared to shortwave at 10 MHz).  At 15 kHz,
the wavelength is 20 km, so it's not like you can string up a half wave
dipole in the trees. And, because the antenna is close to the ground (in
terms of wavelengths) the ground losses in the antenna are significant. In
fact, there isn't any advantage in having the antenna above the ground when
your max height is a small fraction of a wavelength, so you might as well
bury it, which they do.

>

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