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Re: Tesla's Wireless Power Transmission ==> was Re: Non-tech Qu



Tesla List wrote:
 
> Original Poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

> Actually, the signal is easily detectable.  Omega signals are in the 10 kHz
> area and detecting both short and long path is possible without too much
> trouble with inexpensive equipment.  These signals propagate in a mode that
> is essentially a waveguide between surface and ionosphere. 

Ok, but the transmitter power is in the kW (MW?) range, and the received
signal is useless as energy source. 

Looking at the autobiography that Fr. McGahee mentioned, apparently
what Tesla had in mind was to use the currents injected in the Earth 
by the ground connection of a big coil as the signal source. But (much 
as you say below) these currents return to the other end of the coil, 
where a big distributed capacitor is, through the displacement currents 
in the dielectric of this same capacitor, the air around the coil. 
This is a very local effect, and if something is transmitted, is just 
a regular TEM wave irradiating in all directions around the coil, that 
acts just as a short vertical antenna with a large top load. I don't 
know why Tesla didn't see this, even in 1919, where these issues were 
already sufficiently known. His affirmations of lossless transmission
using this system, if this was the system, are unrealistic.

> A more
> significant problem with this around the world thing is that the earth is
> NOT a sphere, particularly not at RF.  If you were to pick an arbitrary
> direction, the propagation path would neither be straight, nor uniform
> speed, nor match the path in another starting direction.

A serious problem, but I thing that the worst problem of the idea is
that the walls of the "waveguide" are far from lossless, and absorbe
a lot of energy.
 
> There is a worldwide lightning detection network that relies on the fact
> that the RF energy from lightning everywhere in the world propagates
> worldwide.  In fact, this is a big constituent of the background noise in
> the LF, MF, and HF radio bands.

But not the main constituent, or radio would not work better at night.

> You actually don't need a return path, per se, any more than a standard
> radio receiving antenna has a path to the radio transmitter.  Think of an
> antenna as a "energy scoop".

Ok, but you can't pick much energy in this way.

> Ionized gas is nowhere near the conductivity of metal...

Exactly.

> Out of curiosity, how low... I'll bet it is <1.. The multiple paths and
> high loss make it more of a group of noncoherent time delays that happens
> to clump around 1/7 second.

I don't know. This was certainly measured. Can someone provide the
answer?

A test if this works is simple. Set a Tesla coil to cause a single
powerful
arc to a grounded object. This will inject a strong current pulse in the 
Earth, right?
Set a vertical antenna close to the coil and look at the sharp voltage
decrease when the arc hits. Look for an echo 133 ms later.

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz