Isolating the secondary coil

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Isolating the secondary coil
From: Jeff Detweiler <jd231825-at-engr.colostate.edu>
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 16:47:25 -0600

Has (or did) anyone taken notice of Duane Bylund's Sept. 1991 article in
Radio-Electronics (about a solid-state TC) which has a secondary coil that
is magnetically (i.e. physically) isolated from the primary circuit? In
other words, he has a solid-state circuit driving a HV transformer whose
one lead is connected directly to the base of the secondary coil, and the
other lead of the transformer is grounded. But the secondary coil is
physically isolated from the transformer by a few feet.

I've never seen this scheme before in the solid-state TCs I've seen. How is
the HV produced, since there is no primary-secondary magnetic coupling? Is
it by self-induction within the secondary coil? If so, what determines the
output voltage, and what would determine the resonant frequency of the
coil? (i.e. would the resonant frequency include dependency on the
characteristics of the HV transformer driving the coil since it is
physically connected to the coil?) And for that matter, why is this type of
scheme not used with the traditional spark-gap type TCs?

Thanks in advance,
Jeff