Experiments With a Tesla Transmitter and Receiver (fwd)

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Original poster: List moderator <mod1@xxxxxxxxxx>



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 11:19:33 -0600
From: Gary Peterson <g.peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Henry Bradford <henry.bradford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
     Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Experiments With a Tesla Transmitter and Receiver

Henry,

I want to point out that you must join the Tesla Coil Mailing List for your 
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On May 24, 2007 you wrote:
>      I would like to make some comments regarding 1, 2, and 3 below, 
> because I think that you could miss some interesting results of 
> experiments with Tesla transmitters and receivers by misinterpreting them. 
> Refer to my attached diagram which represents a Tesla transmitter and 
> receiver stripped down to their bare essentials.  [see 
> http://www.teslaradio.com/images/tx-rx.jpg ].  The same diagram also 
> applies to a typical grounded low frequency radio transmitter and 
> receiver.  In the Tesla transmitter and receiver the spheres represent the 
> elevated conductors, and in a radio transmitter and receiver they would be 
> horizontal wire arrays.  In both cases they provide capacitive top 
> loading.

There are actually three systems to be brought under consideration here, 
each one being set distinctly apart from the others by the design of its 
launching structure.  For the purposes of this investigation the three types 
of wireless transmitter are defined as,

1) The radio wave or Hertz wave transmitter that uses a dipole antenna 
radiator in free space to launch radio space waves; the dipole radiator is 
vertically polarized and separated from the earth's surface by at least one 
wavelength.  This is considered to be and constitutes the ideal radio 
transmitter and forms the theoretical basis upon which all future 
considerations are build.  The term "dipole antenna" refers to an electrical 
dipole and not a physical dipole.  This definition is "a priori," like 
saying that all triangles have three sides.  The analysis of radio wave 
propagation from this transmitter takes into account the effects of the 
electrical current induced in the ground due to the capacitive coupling of 
the lower 1/4-wavelength element to the earth's surface.  This is the same 
as the capacitive coupling between the radials and the earth's surface of a 
1/4-wavelength or 5/8-wavelength ground-plane monopole antenna.  The ideal 
radio transmitter has no ground connection.  The ideal radio transmitter 
uses a dipole radio antenna to launch radio space waves.

2) The Marconi radio wave transmitter that uses a Marconi antenna as its 
launching structure; this type of antenna has attributes in common with both 
the dipole radio transmitter antenna and the ideal Tesla transmitter 
launching structure in that it is intended for the launching of radio space 
waves, as is the dipole antenna, while at the same time it is physically 
connected to the earth.  Because of this hybrid configuration, Marconi-type 
antennas launch both radio space waves and earth-current coupled surface 
wave characteristic of the ideal Tesla transmitter.  The relative proportion 
of these two components is determined by the degree of coupling between the 
ground plane and the earth.

3) The Tesla transmitter that uses a well-grounded, top loaded slow-wave 
helical resonator to launch the earth-current coupled form of surface wave 
that is characteristic of the ideal Tesla transmitter; this is the Tesla 
wave transmitter (for lack of a better description).

On April 16, 2007 you wrote:
>      Re. your comments to Gerry, Gary, I would not define a radio 
> transmitter as one that uses a dipole antenna, they use all sorts of 
> antennas.  At the low frequencies that would have been used by Tesla,
they would almost always use a vertical monopole plus a ground.  The ground 
can be either an earth connection or a ground screen of some sort 
(artificial ground).  A vertical monopole can be either a simple whip or 
mast, or can have an array of wires at the top to provide non-radiating top 
loading capacitance for greater radiating efficiency by the vertical part of 
the antenna.

Do you agree that, for the purposes of mathematical modeling, the ideal 
radio wave transmitter is defined as a radio transmitter that uses an 
ungrounded dipole antenna?

Regards,
Gary

Gary Peterson
Phone: 970-453-9293
Fax: 970-453-6692
www.teslaradio.com
www.teslabooks.com
www.teslascience.org


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "HenryBradford" <henry.bradford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Gary Peterson" <g.peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>; "HenryBradford Bradford" 
<henry.bradford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 7:57 PM
Subject: Re: Experiments with a Tesla transmitter and receiver.


> Greetings Gary & all:
>                              May 24, 2007.
>
>      I would like to make some comments regarding 1, 2, and 3 below,
> because I think that you could miss some interesting results of
> experiments with Tesla transmitters and receivers by misinterpreting
> them. Refer to my attached diagram which represents a Tesla transmitter
> and receiver stripped down to their bare essentials. The same diagram
> also applies to a typical grounded low frequency radio transmitter and
> receiver. In the Tesla transmitter and receiver the spheres represent
> the elevated conductors, and in a radio transmitter and receiver they
> would be horizontal wire arrays. In both cases they provide capacitive
> top loading.
>      It appears to me that Tesla talked about two different concepts at
> different times: (1) a closed circuit between the transmitter and
> receiver that includes a conducting path in the upper atmosphere, and
> (2) an open circuit like the one depicted in the attached diagram,
> which does not involve atmospheric conduction. I will call these two
> concepts of operation:  modes (1) and (2). The following comments refer
> only to mode (2).
>      What the transmitter does depends on the height (h), the current
> (i), and the frequency or wavelength. It does not matter how the
> transmitter's emf is generated. Consequently a Tesla transmitter and a
> grounded radio transmitter will produce the same result if h, i, and
> the frequency are the same. The input emf to the receiver will be the
> product of the vertical electric field (E) and the height (h) of the
> receiver's elevated conductor, regardless of whether it is a Tesla
> receiver or a radio receiver. So this raises the question of whether
> there is any fundamental difference between the Tesla system in mode
> (2) and a conventional low frequency radio system.
>      Tesla apparently believed that the current (i) would flow with
> little loss to long distances through the earth, and would even set up
> whole-Earth oscillations, at least at some frequencies. He also
> believed that because the conduction losses (ohmic) were very low, the
> earth current signal received far from the transmitter would be much
> greater than that produced by the radio wave from a transmitter of
> presumably comparable power. For this reason he focused his attention
> on the ground terminal current. Was he right? This question boils down
> to whether the earth current FROM THE GROUND TERMINAL of the
> transmitter travels very far, whether it generates a vertical electric
> field above the surface of the earth, and if so, whether this field is
> greater than the vertical electric field of the radio wave that is
> inevitably radiated by the above-ground structure of the transmitter
> (from the ground to the elevated terminal).
>      Experimentally there is no obvious way to distinguish the field of
> this radio wave from the hypothetical field of the ground terminal
> current on the basis of received signals. As far as either a Tesla
> receiver or a radio receiver is concerned, a field is a field,
> regardless of how it is generated. What you should do is compare the
> received signal when the transmitter is grounded in the earth to the
> received signal when it is not, all other things being equal,
> especially the transmitter current (i). In order for the ungrounded
> transmitter to work properly, the ground connection should be made to a
> ground screen. I guess that the width of the screen should be about
> equal to (h). It would be preferable to minimize the capacitance
> between the ground screen and the earth by elevating the screen a
> distance of at least (h). As a further precaution to avoid misleading
> results, the transmitter and receiver should be battery operated, and
> the transmitter battery should be on top of the ground screen.
>      If the signal received when the transmitter is grounded to the
> earth is many times greater than the signal received when it is
> grounded to the screen, and the transmitter ground current is the same
> in both cases, it would strongly indicate that the field due to the
> ground terminal current in the earth is really significant. That would
> be a very interesting result!
>
>
> Cheers, Henry.


> On 23-May-07, at 8:20 PM, Gary Peterson wrote:
>
>> ----- Original Message ----- Subject: Re: Flourescent tubes, no
>> resistance?
>>
>> Tesla Coil Builders List wrote:
>>> . . . I can`t wait to get my coil going!!!! . . .
>>
>> On April 15, 2007 as part of an off-list discussion of Nikola Tesla's
>> system for the transmission of electrical energy without wires, Gerry
>> Reynolds noted that while creating a mathematical model which is
>> representative of the Tesla wireless system, "areas of uncertainty
>> will arise during this process and then we can agree on where the
>> uncertainty is and propose experiments to empirically answer those
>> questions."  At this point in the discussion some areas of uncertainty
>> are,
>>
>>     1) To what degree are grounded Tesla coil transmitters sources of
>> radio waves in the far field zone?
>>
>>     2) If the vertical cylindrical conductor between the top turn of
>> the helical resonator up to the elevated terminal is shortened and at
>> the same time the resonator itself is lengthened, how are far-field
>> radio wave missions effected?
>>
>>     3) Does Maxwell's theory accurately predict the degree of
>> electrostatic coupling when the spacing between the two elevated
>> terminals of a Tesla coil transmitter and a Tesla receiving
>> transformer pair is more than a few wavelengths?
>>
>>     4) If it were possible to ionize a path from Earth's surface to
>> the upper troposphere, what power and wavelength UV laser would be
>> required?
>>
>>     5) How much power would be required to maintain ionization in the
>> troposphere between transmitter and receiver, assuming that this
>> portion of the path can somehow be ionized?
>>
>>     6) Does Earth resonate at a frequency of not more that 12Hz that
>> corresponds with a theoretical terrestrial resonance frequency of
>> 11.787 Hz?
>>
>> Questions #1 and #2 can be answered by testing the emissions of
>> various Tesla coil transmitters following the guidelines set out in
>> "FCC Methods of Measurement of Radio Noise Emissions From Industrial,
>> Scientific, and Medical Equipment."
>>
>> Question #3 can be answered by extensive signal strength measurements
>> using the experimental apparatus described in #3 below.
>>
>> Addressing question #4 will require the experimental apparatus
>> described below and various UV radiation sources.
>>
>> Here is Dr. Tesla's generalization in regards to question #5:
>>
>>     "As to the influence of rarefaction upon the electric conductivity
>> imparted to the gases it is noteworthy that, whereas the atmospheric
>> or other gases begin ordinarily to manifest this quality at something
>> like seventy-five millimeters barometric pressure with the impulses of
>> excessive electromotive force to which I have referred, the
>> conductivity, as already pointed out, begins even at normal pressure
>> and continuously increases with the degree of tenuity of the gas, so
>> that at, say, one hundred and thirty millimeters pressure, when the
>> gases are known to be still nearly perfect insulators for ordinary
>> electromotive forces, they behave toward electromotive impulses of
>> several millions of volts, like excellent conductors, as though they
>> were rarefied to a much higher degree." [SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION OF
>> ELECTRICAL ENERGY, Sept. 2, 1897, U.S. Patent No. 645,576, Mar. 20,
>> 1900.]
>>
>> Dr. Tesla used an artificial atmospheric pressure of 135 mm Hg in a
>> sectional 50-foot long evacuated glass tube to collect data about the
>> properties of air plasma.  Note that the rarified gas inside of the 3"
>> diameter sectional glass tube was plain air.  No other substances such
>> as mercury were added as that would have altered the air's
>> conductivity.
>>
>>     "I took a tube 50 feet long, in which I established conditions
>> such as would exist in the atmosphere at a height of about 4 1/2
>> miles, a height which could be reached in a commercial enterprise. . .
>> . Then, on the basis of the results I had already obtained, I
>> established those conditions, practically, in my laboratory.  I used
>> that coil which is shown in my patent application of September 2, 1897
>> (Patent No. 645,576 of March 20, 1900), the primary as described, the
>> receiving circuit, and lamps in the secondary transforming circuit,
>> exactly as illustrated there.  And when I turned on the current, I
>> showed that through a stratum of air at a pressure of 135 millimeters,
>> when my four circuits were tuned, several incandescent lamps were
>> lighted."
>>
>> An answer to question #6 will require considerable resources that
>> might be brought to bear if a large group of people come together with
>> this common vision.
>>
>> To begin answering the above questions the collection of performance
>> data using the following experimental apparatus is required:
>>
>> 1) A system for one-wire transmission between a Tesla coil transmitter
>> and a Tesla coil receiving transformer with ground for return.
>>
>> 2) A system for electrical transmission between a Tesla coil
>> transmitter and a Tesla coil receiving transformer through a partially
>> evacuated glass tube with ground for return.
>>
>> 3) A system for wireless transmission between a Tesla coil transmitter
>> and a Tesla coil receiving transformer with ground for return.
>>
>> The following is a general description of an experiment that can be
>> performed with apparatus #3.
>>
>> First, place a tuned Tesla coil transmitter and Tesla coil receiver
>> pair at a distance exceeding a few wavelengths and put the system into
>> operation to demonstrate its functionality.
>>
>> That radio waves are not involved in the transfer of energy (to answer
>> question #1) can be shown by testing the emissions of the Tesla coil
>> transmitter following the guidelines set out in "FCC Methods of
>> Measurement of Radio Noise Emissions From Industrial, Scientific, and
>> Medical Equipment."  If the Tesla coil transmitter is found not to be
>> a radio wave emitter then the connection between the Tesla coil
>> transmitter and the Tesla coil receiver must be by some means other
>> than radio waves.
>>
>> The radio wave emissions testing is to be done using a conventional
>> radio receiver that is tunable to the Tesla coil transmitter's
>> operating frequency, and which is sensitive only to radio waves.  The
>> radio wave receiver's antenna must be configured in such a way so that
>> it interacts as much as possible with radio waves and as little as
>> possible with the non-radiating emissions of the Tesla coil
>> transmitter.  Some appropriate antennas for this purpose are the
>> vertical 1/2-wave dipole antenna suspended high above the ground to
>> minimize capacitive coupling to the earth, the tuned air loop antenna,
>> and the tuned ferrite loop-stick antenna.  A conventional radio wave
>> transmitter connected to a dipole antenna as described above should be
>> used to test the efficacy of the standard radio wave receiver.
>>
>> The basic assumptions behind this comparative study of a conventional
>> radio transmission-reception system and a "Tesla wave"
>> transmission-reception system are as follows:
>>
>> 1) The emissions associated with an operating Tesla coil transmitter
>> are predominantly non-radiating with reduced emissions in the form of
>> radio waves.
>>
>> 2) Radio receivers connected to conventional non-grounded or
>> non-counterpoise radio antennas are more sensitive, to a degree yet to
>> be determined, to radio waves than they are to the non-radiating
>> electromagnetic field energy associated with an operating Tesla coil
>> transmitter.  Non-grounded radio antennas can be constructed, the
>> performance of which approach that of the ideal radio antenna.
>>
>> 3) Grounded Tesla receiving transformers are more sensitive, to a
>> degree yet to be determined, to the non-radiating energy associated
>> with an operating Tesla coil transmitter than they are to radio waves.
>>  Grounded Tesla coil transmitters and Tesla coil receivers can be
>> constructed, the performance of which approach the ideal in both
>> cases.  Radio transmitters with tuned grounded or ground plane
>> antennas are also capable of emitting the form of electrical energy
>> associated with an operating Tesla coil transmitter and that radio
>> receivers with this class of antenna are also capable of collecting
>> the predominant form of electrical energy associated with an operating
>> Tesla coil transmitter.
>>
>> It follows from this, if the energy from an operating Tesla coil
>> transmitter is well collected by a Tesla receiving transformer, but is
>> not well collected by a radio receiver connected to non-grounded or
>> non-counterpoise radio antenna, while at the same time the radio
>> receiver does well collect energy from a radio-wave transmitter
>> connected to non-grounded or non-counterpoise radio antenna, all of
>> these operating at the same frequency, then the electrical energy from
>> the Tesla coil transmitter that is well collected by the Tesla
>> receiving transformer is not predominantly in the form of radio waves.
>>  If this is found to be true, the cause-and-effect relationship will
>> shed some light on question #3.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Gary
>>
>> Gary Peterson
>> Phone: 970-453-9293
>> Fax: 970-453-6692
>> www.teslaradio.com
>> www.teslabooks.com
>> www.teslascience.org