Re: Undamped oscillations

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Thank you Ed for the reference to Marconi's "timed spark discharger".
Googling this I found an excellent page at
<http://hjem.get2net.dk/helthansen/marconi_tx.htm>http://hjem.get2net.dk/helthansen/marconi_tx.htm 
that goes into nice
detail about the operation of such hardware.  I'm still not sure that I
would call the result "undamped", but at least it is more or less CW.
I
wonder just what visibility Tesla had into the actual waveforms?

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA "

   If there was one spark per cycle the wave would be undamped 
although there might be harmonics present of magnitude depending on 
the loaded Q of the circuit.  If there was only one [correctly 
phased] spark every N periods then I believe a mistuned tank circuit 
would result in a broader wave although I've not tried to analyze the 
situation.  As for Tesla's visibility he probably had only his 
intuition at the time (pre 1900).
Cathode ray oscillographs didn't come along until several years later 
during Wardenclyfee days and no evidence he had on.  Big, expensive, 
and awkward to use.  Zennek's "Wireless Telegraphy" does have 
photographs of some waveforms, at least in the US edition I 
have.  There's a nice little book called "WAVEFORMS" by a guy named 
V. I. Phllips (no relation) which reviews most everything which was 
used to try to view or measure or visualize waveforms, both acoustic 
and electrical, from the mid 19th-century on to the present and I 
have a copy  [somewhere].  The date is from his book.

Ed