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Re: tungsten carbide



Hi Richard,

> On another subject: Al is 1.64 times more resistive than Cu. It is 
> easier to solder as well, so does anyone think it would be worth looking 
> into getting some copper flashing for making home made capacitors? It 
> can only improve the Q of them (reactance:resistance must be 1.64 times 
> better). It occurs to me that once the primary coil has been optimised 
> and the spark gap is as good as it gets, then the cap ought to be 
> improved. At the moment we know that the gap is the most lossy 
> component, in spite of the excellent improvements carried out by a lot 
> of people. If anyone has any comments on this I would be interested to 
> hear them. There is also the possibility of Ag plating on the primary 
> coil (and the cap plates if they're Cu). This is nothing new but I 
> thought it should be mentioned.
> 
> Richard Craven

I suppose the over-riding consideration is cost and availability of 
copper foil as opposed to aluminium. On plating: I have heard (but 
not verified) that at the kind of frequencies we run at that could be 
a disadvantage. The current will in preference flow in the more 
conductive silver but if the silver is less than a skin depth at 
operating frequency, it could worsen or not improve the conductivity
over that of copper. Anyone else heard this?

Malcolm