Stone Stone

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br>

Hi:

I was taking a look at old patents at the U. S Patent Office site:
http://www.uspto.gov/index.html
Looking at the earliest patents about spark telegraphy (class 178/116),
I found the patent RE012151, by John Stone Stone (original 714832,
from 1902).
Apart from the curious name, what the patent describes is a Tesla
coil used as a spark transmitter. The reasoning of the author is
very clear, specially when he says that the transformer is used to
produce a higher voltage at the antenna than would be possible by
the old method of charging the antenna and discharging it through
a spark gap. He mentions some Tesla patents, that show the same
structure, but says that Tesla's intention was to transmit the
signal through conduction in the air, and not through an electromagnetic
wave.
I don't know more about Mr. Stone, but recognize that he had
the right idea about how to use a Tesla coil as transmitter.

In the last days I am spending a lot of time looking at old
patents. The U. S. site and the European site are free, and contain
an enormous amount of information. In the European site it's
possible to search old patents by the name of the author, 
although the results are sometimes confuse. In the U. S. site
it's possible to see the patents in a given class in reverse time 
order. The U. S. site has the patents in TIFF format. The
european site (http://ep.espacenet-dot-com) in PDF format.

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz