Re: SSTC As a transmitter

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

Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Mddeming-at-aol-dot-com>
> 
> In a message dated 8/1/02 7:38:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> writes:
> 
> >
> > > This system uses
> > > currents that flow thru the ionosphere as one
> > > conductor and the earth as the
> > > other. These two conductors are connected by
> > > currents flowing thru the
> > > atmosphere during fair weather and by lightning
> > > strikes during storms.
> > >
> 
> Hi All,
> Problem here is that Lightning is a tropospheric phenomenon. The layers
of the
> atmosphere that produce lightning strikes to earth and that Tesla wanted to
> send his "terminals" into, end at least THIRTY MILES BELOW  the beginning of
> the ionosphere. Not on his worst later day would he have considered a
> fifty-mile high antenna practical. The pressures described by Tesla as
> appropriate to his "conduction layer" (75-150 mmHg) are many times higher
than
> that in the densest portion of the ionosphere.  It seems obvious therefore,
> that anyone claiming that Tesla was planning to use the ionosphere for
> transmission of power by non-Hertzian means are mistaken.

	He planned to use a "conducting layer" which it is true he thought
could be formed at a much lower level than 50 miles.  However, that just
can't be as the pressure is much too high, as he must have known but
ignored.  Furthermore, the only region which could be ionized would be
that near his "antenna", even if horizontal streamers formed as they do
with a TC.  While he didn't mention it in his patents, he apparently got
into this line of thought from his experiments with ionizing the gas in
a confined tube and showing that they were conducting, something which
no scientist of the time would have doubted.  He went astray trying to
make the giant leap of ionizing the air above the whole earth.

	As for trosospheric phenomena, remember those lightning bolts would
have to traverse his "conducting layer".  If it were as good a conductor
as he says it would indeed be shorted to ground by a single strike
anywhere, as an enormous current would flow.  If not such a good
conductor his scheme wouldn't work for other reasons.

Ed