Electromagnetically quenched gaps / plans

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Tesla Museum by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <tesla-at-electrotherapymuseum-dot-com>

Hello,
About a year or so ago I was experimenting with Poulsen Arcs, Singing 
Arcs, and plans for building Tesla Coils
that operated straight off of the mains using spark gaps in a hydrogen 
environment with large magnetic fields perpendicular to the gap.

These gaps originally were used in wireless transmissions and also 
for novel apparatus such as musical instruments
in "the singing arc", and by Duddell and others for undampened oscillations 
of high frequency for 
high powered surgical diathermy and related medical use in the 19teens 
and 1920s.

A very large magnetic field can be used to quench a gap, I do have 
plans for such about 80 miles from here that I can acquire.
I remember also having novel plans for electrolytic rectifiers.  
I believe a.c. would work to some extent, but, there *was* some form 
of
recitifier in the circuit.  Being from 1915 or so, it wasn't too 
terriblly complicated to build.

However, the hydrogen gaps were another matter.  I had extreme difficulty 
in constructing these, and remember that they were filled with
black soot in operation and needed to be cleaned often.  As well 
as my hands, in getting covered with it!

I remember experimenting with large magnetic fields and carbon arcs,
and the results were astonishing.  Not so much for
efficiency, but in SOUND!  They SCREACHED with a sound so loud and 
so peculiar, that the closest approximation I can
give would be to put a microphone and amplifier in front of a squealing 
pig, and turning it up full blast until the squeals are 
drenched with feedback.  This is only an approximation :) , but, 
believe me, the sound is strange and deafening !!

Jeff Behary, http://www.electrotherapymusem-dot-com


At Saturday, 21 April 2001, you wrote:

>Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <A123X-at-aol.
com>
>
>I'm pretty sure if you made an alternating current electromagnet 
for gap 
>quenching it would work, but always blow it the same direction because 
the 
>poles on the magnet switch direction when the current in the spark 
gap does. 
>
>In a message dated 4/21/01 1:49:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman.
com 
>writes: 
>
>>
>> Would it be possible to use electromagnets running on 120, or 
maybe even 
>> make 
>> a large electromagnet running on the HV source (OBIT, NST ...)? 
I thought 
>> maybe an AC electromagnet wouldn't work because its ALTERNATING 
current, so 
>> maybe one could rectify the AC??? 
>>
>> Probly just another useless idea found on the *VERY* steep learning 
>> curve....
>