RE: [TCML] Tuning vs Interference

["Lau, Gary" <Gary.Lau@xxxxxx>]

Raising livestock and testing Tesla coils are both difficult for apartment dwellers.  In lieu of good RF ground, the standard advice for your situation is to tie the coil's RF ground connection to a counterpoise - the largest and nearest piece of metal that you muster.  Think surface area rather than weight.  A long length of unrolled aluminum foil would be better than a barbell, for instance.

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Phillip Slawinski
> Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 11:49 PM
> To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [TCML] Tuning vs Interference
>
> My RF ground is 22ga wire run to a drain pipe on the side of the building.
> Probably not the lowest impedance ground available.  Unfortunately I can't
> really do any better than this.  I live on the third floor of an apartment
> building.
>
> It looks like I'm not going to be able to run the TC much longer in this
> apartment :(  Maybe I should build a VTTC
>
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 10:33 PM, Lau, Gary <Gary.Lau@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > If you're referring to radiated RF, I'll guess that interference decreases
> > if a coil is out of tune.  But I'm curious.  What do you use for an RF
> > ground?  The amount of (conducted) RF that is coupled into your mains wiring
> > is directly related to the quality of your RF ground, and this is what may
> > have done in your cable box.  Hearing what you used would be a valuable data
> > point for the rest of us.
> >
> > If I think about it, if a coil is out of tune, the primary energy has
> > trouble getting to the secondary side, so it stands to reason that the
> > oscillating primary will couple through the NST and into the power mains
> > more-so than if it could dump the energy quickly into the secondary.  That's
> > my shoot-from-the-hip analysis, anyway.
> >
> > Regards, Gary Lau
> > MA, USA
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
> > > Behalf Of Phillip Slawinski
> > > Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 10:37 PM
> > > To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
> > > Subject: [TCML] Tuning vs Interference
> > >
> > > Does interference go up or down when the coil is properly in tune?  I
> > bought
> > > a new transformer today (and picked up a freebie).  Anyways, the freebie
> > was
> > > a 15/30 so I'm running that in parallel with my other 15/30.  I have a
> > cap
> > > size that's pretty close to resonant cap size for my transformer.  The
> > caps
> > > are bottle caps so they're pretty terrible.  I hope my losses are all in
> > the
> > > caps, because I'm only getting 12" streamers with a breakout point.
> >  Getting
> > > back to the subject line here ... every time I run the coil the cable box
> > > loses it's authorization.  This used to happen sometimes, but not always.
> > > Now it happens every time.  Does this mean my coil is still out of tune,
> > or
> > > will it be causing massive amounts of interference even when it's in
> > tune?
> > >
> > > P.S.  It would seem that I've fried my cable box :(  It just keeps
> > flashing
> > > "card download"
> >
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