Magnifying transmitter

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A publicity photo of a participant sitting in the Colorado Springs experimental station with his "Magnifying Transmitter". The arcs are about 22 feet (7 m) long. (Tesla's notes identify this as a double exposure.)
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A publicity photo of a participant sitting in the Colorado Springs experimental station with his "Magnifying Transmitter". The arcs are about 22 feet (7 m) long. (Tesla's notes identify this as a double exposure.)

The magnifying transmitter is an alternate version of a Tesla Coil. It is a high power harmonic oscillator that Nikola Tesla proposed for the wireless transmission of electrical energy.[1] Tesla's apparatus is a high-voltage, air-core, multiple-resonant transformer that can generate very high voltages at high frequency. He originally termed it self-regenerative resonant transformer, a term that is no longer in general use.

Contents

[edit] History

The first 'Magnifier' was assembled in New York City in the period between 1895 - 1898.[1] In 1899 a larger magnifier was constructed in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This machine was used to conduct fundamental experiments in wireless telecommunications and electrical power transmission. Measuring fifty-one feet in diameter, it developed a working potential estimated at 3.5 - 4 million volts and was capable of producing electrical discharges exceeding one hundred feet in length (30.5 meters).[2]

[edit] Colorado arrival

Tesla's Colorado lab was located in a highly geomagnetic location.
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Tesla's Colorado lab was located in a highly geomagnetic location.

In 1899, Tesla decided to move and began research in Colorado Springs. He chose this location primarily because of the frequent thunderstorms, the high altitude (where the air, being at a lower pressure, had a lower dielectric breakdown strength, making it easier to ionize), and the dryness of the air (minimizing leakage of electric charge through insulators). Tesla kept a diary of his experiments in the Colorado Springs lab where he spent nearly nine months. It consists of 500 pages of handwritten notes and nearly 200 drawings, recorded chronologically between June 1, 1899 and January 7, 1900, as the work occurred, containing explanations of his experiments.

[edit] Tuned electrical circuit

While in Colorado, Tesla constructed many smaller resonance transformers and conducted further research on tuned electrical circuits. Tesla also designed various coherers for detecting and separating electromagnetic waves, and rotating coherers which he used to detect the unique types of electromagnetic phenomenon he observed. These used a mechanism of geared wheels driven by a coiled spring-drive mechanism which rotated small glass cylinders filled with metallic powder. These experiments were the final stage of years of work on synchronized tuned electrical circuits. These transceivers were constructed to demonstrate how signals could be "tuned" to respond to specific signals while rejecting others. Tesla logged in his diary on July 3, 1899 that a separate resonance transformer tuned to the same high frequency as a larger high-voltage resonance transformer (which acted as a transmitter) would receive energy from the larger coil, demonstrating transmission of wireless energy. This experiment was used to confirm Tesla's patent for radio during later disputes in the courts. These air core high-frequency resonant coils were the predecessors of systems from radio to medical magnetic resonance imaging .

[edit] Power transmission

On July 3, 1899, Tesla discovered terrestrial stationary waves within the earth. He demonstrated that the Earth behaves as a smooth polished conductor and possesses electrical vibrations. Tesla demonstrated that the Earth could respond at predescribed frequencies of electrical vibrations. Tesla conducted experiments contributing to the understanding of electromagnetic propagation and the Earth's resonance. He transmitted signals several kilometres and lit neon tubes conducting through the ground.

Tesla researched ways to transmit energy wirelessly over long distances (via transverse waves, to a lesser extent, and, more readily, longitudinal waves). He transmitted extremely low frequencies through the ground as well as between the earth's surface and the Kennelly-Heaviside layer. He received patents on wireless transcievers that developed standing waves by this method. In his experiments, he made mathematical calculations and computations based on his experiments and discovered that the resonant frequency of the Earth was approximately 8 Hz (Hertz). In the 1950s, researchers confirmed that the resonant frequency of the Earth's ionospheric cavity was in this range. See Schumann resonance

The Magnifying Transmitter was the basis for Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower project. Although modern Tesla coils are designed to generate disruptive discharges, this system was designed for wireless communication and power transmission via longitudinal waves and telluric currents. In 1925, John B. Flowers advanced a proposal to test Tesla's system and to implement the system. H. L. Curtis, the chief of the Bureau of Standards Radio Laboratory in Washington D.C., and J. H. Dillinger, a physicist, reviewed the proposal but declined to implement the proposed plan. Flower's mechanical analogy test was successful, though. [7]

[edit] Telegeodynamics

Tesla conceived of a system, during this time experimenting with the Magnifier, of geophysical exploration - seismology - which he called telegeodynamics. This was based on his reciprocating mechanical oscillator patented in 1894 and he explained that a long sequence of small explosions could be used to find ore and create earthquakes large enough to destroy the Earth. He did not experiment with this as he felt there would not be "a desirable outcome". Tesla also constructed many smaller resonance transformers and discovered the concept of tuned electrical circuits.

[edit] Magnifying Transmitter

Transmitter details
The electrical oscillator, cited by Dr. Tesla as his most important and greatest invention, consists of three inductors:
The magnifier operated as a base-driven quarter-wave helical resonator. It is reported that Tesla operated the magnifier at 100 kHz. The oscillator created earth currents of such magnitude that sparks an inch long could be drawn from a water main at a distance of 300 feet from the laboratory station.

The layout of the Wardenclyffe magnifying transmitter is fairly well known, based upon Tesla's patents [4,5] and various photographs [3,6] in which the concept was implemented. The magnifying transmitter is not identical to the classic Tesla coil. It has the short thick primary and longer secondary inductors characteristic of the Tesla coil, although their magnetic coupling is tighter. Because of this, more aggressive measures have to be taken in terms of primary spark quenching and providing additional insulation between the primary and secondary. In addition to the two large-diameter coils that comprise the master oscillator, Tesla added a third inductor called the "extra coil." Tesla experimented with the magnifying transmitter using continuous wave and damped-wave resonant modes.

[edit] Construction and theory of operation

In a classical Tesla coil the primary drives the ground end of the secondary coil to form the driver transformer, which resonates the entire secondary coil. In the magnifying transmitter the driving and resonating parts of the secondary are separate coils. From a circuit analysis standpoint, there is no difference between the classical coil and the magnifier.

The extra coil or helical resonator can be physically separated from the two close-coupled coils which comprise the master oscillator or driver section. The power from the master oscillator is fed to the lower end of the extra coil resonator through a large diameter electrical conductor or pipe to minimize corona. The magnifying transmitter's base-driven extra coil behaves as a slow-wave helical resonator, the axial disturbance propagating at a velocity of less than 1% up to around 10% the speed of light in free space. The Magnifying Transmitter's axial velocity electromagnetic field is established by the coil pitch and electrical charge propagation speed through the circuit. It is interesting to note that rigorous mathematical descriptions of Tesla's Magnifier did not become available until 50-100 years after Tesla's pioneering work. Modern analyses have tried to apply distributed "transmission line" descriptions of the "extra coil" rather than the usual lumped-constant analysis. Recently developed theories of resonator behavior show that, although distributed analysis is more accurate for all excitation modes, lumped analysis can be effectively used to design practical Tesla coils and Magnifiers.

[edit] Operation

Using low frequency harmonic Maxwellian oscillations, Tesla attempted to develop standing waves of extremely low frequency in the Earth's electro-magnetic circuit. Based upon observations made with the device, Tesla reported that a type of Earth resonance can be excited (An example of an earth resonance is the Schumann resonance). Tesla states that he discovered with the device that Earth's resonance can be excited. Tesla set up standing electomagnetic waves with the Magnifying Transmitter in the telluric potential energy.

It has been proposed by some that Tesla was utilizing Earth's magnetic fields' extremely low frequencies in a global resonator of power and information. Some posit that this variation of the Tesla coil was mainly intended for wireless transmissions of information. In normal operation the device is relatively silent, generating a high power electric field, but if the output voltage exceeds the design voltage of the elevated terminal, high-voltage sparks will strike out from the electrode into the air. Tesla became the first man to create electrical effects on the scale of lightning. Cripple Creek residents could hear thunder coming from his lab produced by the Colorado Springs machine.

It has been reported that Colorado Springs residents near the lab would observe sparks emitting from the ground to their feet and through their shoes. Electrical sparks could be observed from the local water main that was used, at times, as a ground connection. The area around the laboratory would glow with corona (similar to the phenomena of St. Elmo's Fire). One of Tesla's experiments damaged a Colorado Springs Electric Company generator by backfeeding high frequency radio frequency into the city's power distribution system.

[edit] Related Tesla Patents

See also: List of Tesla patents

[edit] Further reading

Tesla's publications

  • Tesla, Nikola, "On the Transmission of Electricity Without Wires". Electrical World and Engineer, 5 March 1904.

Electrical World

  • "The Development of High Frequency Currents for Practical Application"., The Electrical World, Vol 32, No. 8.
  • "Boundless Space: A Bus Bar". The Electrical World, Vol 32, No. 19.
  • "Mr. Tesla's Application of the Hertz-Wave Transmission". The Electrical World, Vol 32, No. 8.

Other publications

  • Bass, Robert W., "Self-Sustained Non-Hertzian Longitudinal Wave Oscillations as a Rigorous Solution of Maxwell's Equations for Electromagnetic Radiation". Inventek Enterprises, Inc., Las Vegas, Nevada.
  • Bieniosek, F. M., "Triple Resonance Pulse Transformer Circuit". Review of Scientific Instruments, 61 (6).
  • Corum, J. F., and K. L. Corum, "Disclosure Concerning the Operation of an ELF Oscillator". CPG Communications, Inc., Newbury, Ohio.
  • Corum, J. F., and K. L. Corum, "A Physical Interpretation of the Colorado Springs Data". CPG Communications, Inc., Newbury, Ohio.
  • Corum, J. F., and K. L. Corum, "Tesla's Colorado Spring Receivers (A Short Introduction)". 2003.
  • Corum, J. F., and K. L. Corum, "RF Coils, Helical Resonators and Voltage Magnification by Coherent Spatial Modes". IEEE, 2001.
  • de Queiroz, Antonio Carlos M., "Synthesis of Multiple Resonance Networks". Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. EE/COPE.
  • de Queiroz, Antonio Carlos M., "Designing a Tesla Magnifier". Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. EE/COPE.
  • Grotz, Toby, "Wireless Transmission of Power: An Attempt to Verify Nikola Tesla's 1899 Colorado Springs Experiment, Results of Research and Experimentation". TESLA, Inc., Craig Colorado.
  • Hartley, R. V. L., "Oscillations with Non-linear Reactances". Bell Systems Technical Journal, Sun Publishing. 1992.
  • Wait, James, R., "Electromagnetic Waves in Stratified Media". Pergammon Press, 1972. (2nd edition)

Patents

[edit] See also

[edit] External links and resources

[edit] References

[1] - My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, Hart Brothers, 1982, Ch. 5, ISBN 0-910077-00-2
[2] - Nikola Tesla : Guided Weapons & Computer Technology, Leland I. Anderson, Twenty First Century Books, 1998, pp. 12-13, ISBN 0-9636012-9-6.
[3] - Anderson, Leland I., "Nikola Tesla on his work with alternating currents and their application to wireless telegraphy, telephony, and transmission of power". Twenty First Century Books, 2002, pp. 74, 89-90, 107, 111, ISBN 1-893817-01-6.
[4] - Apparatus for Transmission of Electrical Energy, U.S. Patent No. 649,621, 15 May 1900
[5] - Apparatus for Transmitting Electrical Energy, Jan. 18, 1902, U.S. Patent 1,119,732, Dec. 1, 1914
[6] - Tesla, Nikola, "Colorado Springs Notes", 1899-1900, Nikola Tesla Museum, Beograd, 1978.
[7] - Valone, Thomas, "Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature". ISBN 1-931882-04-5
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