Flourescent tube primary

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

Original poster: "explorecraft" <pariah-at-explorecraft-dot-com> 

I haven't seen this discussed anwhere,
  but has anyone ever tried using
  (one or array) of circular flourescent tubes
  as a primary for a stepup transformer?
My guess is that the inductance is lost to ions
  absorbing energy inside the tube.

<I was examining one of those 'power-saver'
   capacitor-bank demonstration units,
   where they had paralleled 8 40w <220vac 50Hz> circular tubes
   to simulate their load, and although it 'appeared'
  that mutual inductance might be interfering with
  the individual tube start-ups, there didn't appear to be any
  magnetic field resulting from these bulbs.>

just curious...
cheers