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Re: [TCML] Safely Grounding a Tesla Coil



The BC station can do that in spite of the cost because it increases the radiated power enough to be worth the money. 120 is extreme but not unusual even though going beyond maybe 16 doesn't add much. [See LaPorte's Radio Antenna Engineering.] Purpose is to minimize losses from current flowing into ground resistance. The elevated counterpoise is sometimes used when the ground conductivity is poor. It serves a similar purpose.

For RADIATING systems the ground is even more important at lower frequencies. However, TC's aren't made as radiating devices and a simple counterpoise or ground works well enough. I always use a solid ground on the bottom of the secondary and on any circuit connected to the HV transformer to try to keep HV away from the secondary if anything goes wrong.

Ed

"The reference is to grounding systems (radials, primarily) for vertical antennas. A classic AM radio station ground is 120 radials extending out as far as the antenna is tall. Not because that's "optimum", necessarily, but it's enough that adding more radials doesn't improve the performance of the antenna significantly. A lot less will also work.

Bear in mind that AM radio transmitters at 1 MHz are sort of different than a tesla coil at 200 kHz. Also, radio transmitting antennas are designed to radiate, while TCs aren't.

The basic concepts of the ground plane are the same: add conducting elements to improve the apparent conductivity under the antenna/tesla coil.

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