Secondary Q

["Kennan C Herrick" <kcha1-at-xxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

There's been a bit of discussion of secondary Q recently that leads me to
ask how all you 19th-cy. spark-gap types (the vast majority!) manage to
utilize decent Q at all:  Your tuning is imprecise due to difficulty in
getting primary resonance to match that of the secondary; and
also--certainly when using a secondary with a Q as high as 80-100, which
I've measured for mine--because the secondary's resonant frequency is not
only "hard to find" but also it is going to shift markedly whenever a
conducting surface gets anywhere near it.  You've got two resonant
circuits searching for each other, so to speak, with not a whole lot of
continuing success, I should think.  

I'm aware of the assertion that the energy stored in the primary
capacitor gets put into the secondary capacitance, less that lost due to
gap loss and to primary:secondary coupling inefficiency.  So if the
capacitance ratio is 100:1 and you start out with 10KV on the primary one
then theoretically you end up with a respectable voltage in the
secondary's capacitance prior to the zap.  But where, then, does
resonance come into it, and how are you going to gain, particularly, by
having a high-Q secondary?

Perhaps I'm too much of a purist but I stick with my s.s. system in which
there's only one resonant item, the secondary, and that item itself is
the resonant element in a feedback primary-driving oscillator circuit. 
Always spot-on, resonance-wise, cycle by cycle.  So with my scheme, the
higher the Q the better since higher Q facilitates higher voltage
build-up prior to the spark.  

Comments?

Ken Herrick
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