[TCML] RF Ground and Brass

[bartb]

Hi Phil,

> I had incredibly hot primary-to-secondary arcing  at the base of my 6" 
> SISG coil until I connected the secondary base to earth  (via a length of 10ga 
> stranded THHN). At first I thought it was the primary  arcing to the secondary, 
> until I realized it was the floating secondary arcing  to the primary!
> Without grounding the base of the secondary  somehow, you've got a 
> bipolar coil!
>   

When the secondary arced to the primary, it found it's ground point (or 
the nearest thing to it). That's not really bipolar. I guess your 
thinking the fact it arced to the primary in the first place?

I've run without the RF ground and did notice a performance difference 
on a little 2" coil and no difference on a 4.5" coil. The small coils 
frequency was effected enough to pull it out of tune, but not so for the 
larger coil, so it sparked just fine. It did seem a little out of wack, 
but still gave good spark lengths (and that's when some house equipment 
died). So, not all coils react the same.

Take care,
Bart