And what of the FCC? (fwd)

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: And what of the FCC? (fwd)
From: Tesla List <mod1-at-pupman-dot-com>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 14:32:41 -0600 (MDT)
Approved: mod1-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 14:27:25 -0600 (MDT)
From: Chip Atkinson <chip-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: And what of the FCC?

From: 	Geoff Schecht[SMTP:geoffs-at-onr-dot-com]
Sent: 	Thursday, September 25, 1997 3:36 PM
To: 	Tesla List
Subject: 	Re: And what of the FCC?




> From: 	Greg Leyh[SMTP:lod-at-pacbell-dot-net]
> Sent: 	Wednesday, September 24, 1997 4:33 PM
> To: 	Tesla List
> Subject: 	Re: And what of the FCC?
> 
> Geoff Schecht wrote:
> 
> 
> [snip]
> > If they can track you down, chances are you'll hear from the person(s)
> > you're interfering with long before you hear from the FCC. An aggrieved
> > party can, however, pursue legal recourse by filing a formal complaint
with
> > the FCC. Assuming that they even know enough to do that in the first
place,
> > it will then take the FCC a long time to investigate the complaint due
to a
> > chronic shortage in their manpower. 
> 
> That's sort of how I suspect it would work in the real world, 
> and that's why it would be too risky too build some resonant
> behemoth, even out in the middle of nowhere.  There would need
> to be sufficient assurance that the 'evil eye' wouldn't just
> step in and shut it down, shortly after it was built.
> 
> 
> -GL
> 
Greg:

After I wrote my diatribe and read some of the responses to this thread
from those who had actually tested their coils for interference, it
suddenly occured to me that you could test a coil yourself at the resonant
freq (and all harmonics that would matter) with something as simple as a
Sony ICF-2010, a Lowe HF-150 or just about any other decent
general-coverage short wave receiver that covers 100kHz-30MHz and is
battery-operated. Most coils' fundamental frequency is in the LF-VLF band,
where groundwave propagation is the dominant mode (any propagation experts
out there, correct me if I'm wrong on this). Their exponentially-damped
sinewave outputs have few fast edges and therefore, the harmonic content
shouldn't extend for many octaves above the Fr of your system. I don't have
a table of Fourier coefficients handy but any math reference will tell you
about where to look in the radio spectrum relative to the Fr of your system
if you can characterize the output waveshape.

So, have someone pulse your coil on-and-off (or put it on a circuit that
does this automatically), then go down the street with the radio and tune
to Fr, 2Fr, 3Fr, etc and note the relative amplitudes of the S-meter at
each frequency. (A Sony 2010 can be preprogrammed with a number of
frequencies, which will simplify jumping from Fr to the various harmonics).
Then drive a few miles away and repeat the process. If, at a distance, you
can't really hear the coil operating around the various harmonic points;
the chances are good that nobody else will hear it and complain about it,
either. 

(This, of course, is no guarantee that you won't smoke the neighbor's
computer or blow out your shortwave receiver's front end if your system is
capable of creating sparks in the kitchens of people a block away.
Hopefully, you don't have any ammunition reoladers or black powder shooters
in your area! I don't think that the FCC has any jurisdiction in the area
of fire safety, although the State Fire Marshall may take notice...yet
another interesting point to ponder. Someone else already mentioned that
coilers violate every conceivable facet of the NEC.)

Geoff