Hi John,
Actually, a coil that is designed to produce "sparks" is a VERY inefficient RF transmitter and would likely be an inconsequential source of interference to virtually all of the commercial bands of radio frequencies beyond a few tens of meters from the coil, at the most. About the only way that a TC becomes a significant SG transmitter is for it to have a top load so large that it cannot break out with any sparks. The electromagnetic and electrostatic fields in the immediate vicinity of a sparking Tesla coil are of your main concern, although l am not sure that your coil sharing the ground with your short wave radio is the best situation. It's probably not an issue either, though, as long as you don't plan on using your radio and TC simultaneously ;-)
David
John Cooper <wt5y@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>I can play a musical beat or morse by hand through my relay by keying one side of my paddle. No straight key yet. I added a radio shack 120/12v 450ma transformer and used doorbell wire (taped to the ext cord that powers everything) to the key and back down to 120v relay (12vac coil). I know its highly illegal to use a spark gap transmitter but just running a spark gap coil normally would be just as illegal right? I know it doesn't get into my tvs or lights or my 2 meter fm radio (antenna shares ground with tesla coil). Have yet to check it out with 160m-10m hf ssb/cw rig. Its not something I plan on doing (morse code) but the keyer works like a dead key.
>
>John cooper WT5Y
>
>
>Sent from my Cricket smartphone
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