Re: Ground current experiments

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

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>

Hi Jon,
         Nice going! I used to do the same thing back in the 80's. A 
steel benchtop worked wonders. I think the question of the viability 
of Tesla's large scale scheme should be divorced from considerations 
of whether it is a nice thing to do in this day and age of computers. 
I'm still waiting for some serious demonstrations from some who claim 
it can be done.

Regards,
Malcolm

On 3 Mar 2002, at 12:22, Tesla list wrote:


> Original poster: "Jon Rosenstiel by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jonr-at-pacbell-dot-net>
> 
> The past couple of weeks I've been helping my grandson, (age 14), build a
> small battery powered TC for his school science fair. The coil we built is
> based on John Couture's 70kV model as described in his "Tesla Coil
> Construction Guide".
> 
> The purpose of this TC project is to determine if wireless power
> transmission is possible.
> 
> I did a search of the list archives and found a post by Richard Quick
> describing some ground current experiments he performed with a medium sized
> Tesla coil. I kind of doubted that we would be able to perform those
> experiments with our battery powered TC.
> 
> Before we were too far along with the construction of the coil I lashed
> together the various components with alligator clip leads to see what we had
> for spark length, (around one inch), and to see if the ground current
> experiments were possible.
> 
> I had already ordered and received 3, 4, and 5 inch copper spheres from
> McMaster-Carr. I poked around the loft and found an old 4x21 inch, (#22
> wire), secondary.
> 
> The 4x21 secondary topped off with a 5-inch sphere just happened to resonate
> pretty well with our TC's 3.5x13 inch secondary, (#28 wire), topped off with
> a 3 inch sphere.
> 
> I covered the top of our work table with aluminum foil to act as a
> counterpoise and placed the 4x21 coil with it's 5 inch sphere about 1 foot
> from our lashed-up TC.  Both the "transmitting" coil and the "free" coil had
> the bottom of their secondaries connected to the counterpoise.
> 
> When I fired up the transmitting coil I was totally amazed! The experiment
> worked beautifully! We were getting ½ inch sparks off of the free coil's
> sphere! With the free coil placed 15 feet away from the transmitting coil,
> (it's base still connected to the counterpoise), we were able to easily
> light a neon tube and could draw a tiny arc to a ground rod!
> 
> So, if you're looking for some TC entertainment, (and education), I highly
> recommend Richard Quick's ground current experiments. Search the archives
> for "Tesla Experiments", December 1994.
> 
> I don't know if what we did qualifies as "transmitting power", but we did
> manage to produce a spark from the free, "receiving coil" solely through the
> action of ground currents.
> 
> My grandson plans to show that although power can be transmitted using Tesla
> coil ground currents doing so in this age of electronic everything would be
> completely out of the question. Using a AM radio he is going to show just
> how much interference a small Tesla coil, (around 18 watts), can generate!
> If this Tesla coil can drown out stations on the lower end of the AM dial
> 100 to 200 feet away, (it does), just imagine how much havoc a TC the size
> Tesla was constructing at Wardenclyffe would cause!
> 
> Our coil did scramble, (temporarily I hope), my WWVB wristwatch! I had
> better bury this watch in a copper lined lead vault when I fire my 10 inch
> pig powered coil. Just happens to resonate at 63kHz! Might be too much for
> the 60kHz watch receiver!
> 
> Ok, enough for now.
> 
> Jon Rosenstiel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>