Re: Fluorescent Lamps

[Parpp807-at-aol-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

 Scot, Ted, All
No explanation here but I have long played with fluorescent and neon lamps as 
tuning
indicators with nary any surprises. A vacuum tube coil using a pair of #10s, 
driven
by a TV power xformer, will light a pair of 96-inch fluorescent lamps at a 
distance of
5 feet. Its dirty RF fully lights a 4-inch tube held in my hand. A 
fluorescent lamp requires
excitation to produce light. My Green Lantern secret decoder ring is 
phosphorescent
and glows in the dark. Fluorescent lamps make poor decoder rings.  When I 
drew first
light from my 21-inch bipolar coil I stuck a 4-inch fluorescent lamp into the 
arc. Just once.
I was holding the glass near the far end while standing on the concrete 
basement floor. 
The tube lit brightly as the voltage easily penetrated the glass. The 
sensation was prickly
like pins and needles. I won't do it again. The bipolar lights the basement 
fluorescents
within 10 feet when there are feelers and streamers at maximum separation, 
i.e., voltage.
The fluorescents do not light when the bipolar is arcing between its 
terminals. I think this is understandable because the E field is at a minimum 
during the arc but at a maximum
when the voltage is highest between the two terminals and the beast is 
tossing off
bright corona and streamers trying to reach the overhead electric conduit.

Happy day,
Ralph Zekelman