Re: ITS

["Barton B. Anderson" <tesla123-at-xxxxxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

Gary,

A few years ago I tried "several" attempts to gather info from ITS to no avail.
I could never get a response. I eventually condiered ITS "dead". I now see why.
I'm sure glad the Tesla List is still active. Even with the Tesla List, we've
been through hundreds of discussions, some of which were strong in adversity of
views. I'm sure those days aren't gone. I think many of us have learned the
concept of telerating views we may not fully agree with, but I think we are
learning how to go about presenting our ideas and information in ways that are
fully open to others thoughts and ideas on the various topics. I hope we never
fall into an ITS frame of operation. Much of the thanks to keeping us
honest and
on topic is "clearly" credited to the subjective judgement of our moderator
"Terry". Of the moderators in the past, I think Terry has had one of the
strongest challenges to date and has proven himself to be possibly the greatest
asset to the Tesla List that has ever taken on this challenge. I haven't always
agreed with Terry in all aspects, but I'm always either proven right or
wrong by
his endeavors to measure and finalize. Something we should all strive to mimic.

Thanks for your post Gary,
Bart

Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson-at-ksu.edu>
>
> There was a recent message from someone who looked for the Tesla Museum in
> Colorado Springs and found it closed.  Some time ago there was a string
> about the International Tesla Society (ITS), but let me summarize for the
> benefit of the newcomers.
>
> The ITS started having biannual meetings in Colorado Springs in 1984.  I
> missed the first meeting but attended all the remaining meetings.  The focus
> was the life and heritage of Nikola Tesla.  Tesla's nephew, William Terbo,
> was usually the lead speaker, giving the family history as best he
> remembered.  There were historical papers, like Tesla's electric power
> installations at Telluride, Colorado and Niagra Falls, New York.  There were
> papers on the theory and practice of Tesla coils.  Bill Wysock spoke some
> years and often brought some coils to demonstrate.  I don't recall if Bill
> was the one who brought a coil to one of the early meetings, but this coil
> was set up in a hotel ballroom.  It produced nice sparks in the 3 foot
> range.  The only problem was that the coil set off the fire alarms and
> caused the elevators to operate at random.  It was really great fun!  I
> never heard the reason, but the following meeting was held at a different
> hotel!
>
> There would be papers on the politically correct concepts of Tesla that
> never quite gained wide acceptance, such as the Tesla turbine.  And there
> would be papers on the politically incorrect concepts like Death Rays,
> communications from Mars, wireless power transmission, and over-unity
> electrical generators.  I have been to my share of technical meetings, but
> these were my favorites.  Speakers were willing to share new thoughts with a
> friendly crowd of a couple hundred people.  Tesla thought world class
> thoughts, at least some of which were right (radio, polyphase power).
> Speakers were trying to figure out what Tesla was thinking in other areas.
> The result was a feeling of excitement, of being on the cutting edge.
>
> So, what went wrong?  One thing was a loss of focus.  The ITS added medicine
> and other non-Tesla topics to its meetings.  I personally found these other
> topics interesting as well, but they clearly diluted the purpose of the
> meetings.  They added a second meeting in the off years.  The Tesla
> conference was more technical (more Ph.D. speakers, a proceedings) and the
> Extraordinary Science conference was less technical (fewer Ph.Ds. and no
> proceedings).  There was inadequate screening of speakers, especially to the
> second conference.
>
> The ITS decided early to restrict membership of the board of directors to
> those living within perhaps 100 miles of Colorado Springs.  This obviously
> eliminated some quality people who might have provided critical guidance to
> the ITS.
>
> The ITS leadership did not include anyone with experience in publishing
> technical literature, resulting in what I consider serious errors in
> judgment.  The proceedings was typically published two years after the
> meeting, unacceptably late by any standard.  The person in charge insisted
> on reformatting all the papers so they appeared in the same font, rather
> than requiring authors to submit camera ready copy, as is commonly done.
> This introduced new errors in the equations.  Also there was no effort to do
> any sort of technical review of the papers.  I offered very early to be a
> reviewer, having graded thousands of student papers and perhaps a hundred
> papers for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.  They
> sent me one paper to review.  I made what I thought were reasonable requests
> for clarification in the paper, and was never asked to look at another
> paper.  They basically decided to not do any sort of technical review.  I
> realize we need to be sensitive about correcting some creative people, but
> most papers can be improved with some friendly feedback.
>
> Then there was the matter of greed.  By delaying the publication of the
> proceedings, the ITS could sell more videos of the hourly presentations, at
> $29.95 each.  There were accusations and lawsuits about misappropriation of
> funds.  Some speakers would put on workshops for an extra fee.  The net
> effect was a feeling of being pressed to pay exorbitant prices.  In my own
> case, I had supplied some literature to the book store on consignment.  I
> asked to be paid for what had sold, when I was at the next meeting a year
> later.  The people in charge were unable to tell me how much literature had
> been sold, and then told me the check was in the mail (which it was not).  I
> never received any payment, nor a return of unsold items when the ITS went
> bankrupt a couple of years ago.  That was definitely not the way to run the
> show.
>
> It is my understanding that one of the leadership bought the remaining
> assets of ITS for $5000.  I have not heard anything about a restructuring.
> Anyhow, it is a sad story of a great concept squandered by a leadership with
> a lack of vision.
>
> Gary Johnson