[Antennas] Tesla antenna?

Sat, 8 Feb 2003 06:59:55 -0500

I regret that I don't recall anything about Tesla's antenna for
transatlantic transmission, but my sense is that it involved hugh
towers with a wire strung between them. Being a developer of high
frequency resonant circuits, I can't imagine he would have merely put
up a long wire.
I grew up in Manhattan, which still ran on DC thanks to Edison. When
TV came in, we had to get an alternator to convert the DC to AC. I
don't recall when Manhattan went over to AC, but my vague sense is
that it was around the end of WWII. Anyone know for sure?
In order to promote his DC (generated by burning coal on a ship tied
up to a dock in Manhattan?), Edison went on a road show, travelleling
from town to town, connecting stray dogs to Tesla's AC. When the dog
fried dramatically, Edison could say, see, Tesla's approach is much
too dangerous!
This created such an impression that the US adopted the electric chair
as its means of execution. Of course, Edison was right that 60-cycle
AC was really bad for you, but the Westinghouse approach (AC generated
at Niagara Falls with the help of Tesla) prevailed for obvious reasons.
Tesla was not the only one brought over by Edison and exploited for
their inventive genius. I've heard it said that most of Edison's
inventions were actually developed by others and that Edison is more a
prototype capitalist entrepreneur than inventor.
When I was a young, a friend and I built a hugh tesla coil using one
of those cardboard tubes for storing rugs around which to turn the
secondary, an old x-ray transformer, and a heavy copper tubing primary
that we tried to make watercooled (can't remember if we succeeded). We
tested it by creating big arcs and calling up someone in another town
to see they could hear our signal. The towns were Windsor and West
Hartford Connecticut. Although we perhaps deserve credit for inventing
broad band communications, it was a good thing the FCC was not much on
the ball in those days, or we would have gotten into real trouble!
Incidentally, there are some biographies of Tesla that make for some
good reading.
Haines Brown KB1GRM