RE: Counterpoise and MMC demise

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

Original poster: "Stephen Conner by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <steve-at-scopeboy-dot-com>

At 18:37 19/06/03 -0600, you wrote:


>??  If the gap is set to fire at some voltage it will fire at that
>voltage. The cap can't ring up beyond that voltage.

That ain't so... There is a lot of uncertainty in the firing voltage of 
static gaps, it varies depending on dv/dt, electrode temperature, and 
whether a cosmic ray or U.V. photon happened to hit the electrodes as the 
voltage was at its peak. The uncertainty is easily enough to let the cap 
ring up to voltages that will kill your NST power supply, as several people 
myself included have found out the hard way :(

Steve C.