• DOI:10.2298/SJEE1603301C
• Corpus ID: 55561957

Tesla’s high voltage and high frequency generators with oscillatory circuits

@article{Cvetic2016TeslasHV,
  title={Tesla’s high voltage and high frequency generators with oscillatory circuits},
  author={Jovan Cvetic},
  journal={Serbian Journal of Electrical Engineering},
  year={2016},
  volume={13},
  pages={301-333}
}

• J. Cvetic
• Published 2016
• Physics
• Serbian Journal of Electrical Engineering

The principles that represent the basics of the work of the high voltage and
high frequency generator with oscillating circuits will be discussed. Until
1891, Tesla made and used mechanical generators with a large number of
extruded poles for the frequencies up to about 20 kHz. The first electric
generators based on a new principle of a weakly coupled oscillatory circuits
he used for the wireless signal transmission, for the study of the discharges
in vacuum tubes, the wireless energy transmission, for the production of the
cathode rays, that is x-rays and other experiments. Aiming to transfer the
signals and the energy to any point of the surface of the Earth, in the late
of 19th century, he had discovered and later patented a new type of high
frequency generator called a magnifying transmitter. He used it to examine
the propagation of electromagnetic waves over the surface of the Earth in
experiments in Colorado Springs in the period 1899-1900. Tesla observed the
formation of standing electromagnetic waves on the surface of the Earth by
measuring radiated electric field from distant lightning thunderstorm. He got
the idea to generate the similar radiation to produce the standing waves. On
the one hand, signal transmission, i.e. communication at great distances
would be possible and on the other hand, with more powerful and with at least
three magnifying transmitters the wireless transmission of energy without
conductors at any point of the Earth surface could also be achieved. The
discovery of the standing waves on the surface of the Earth and the invention
of the magnifying transmitter he claimed his greatest inventions. Less than
two years later, at the end of 1901, he designed and started to build a much
stronger magnifying transmitter on Long Island near New York City (the
Wardenclyffe tower) wishing to become a world telecommunication center.
During the tower construction, he elaborated the plans for an even stronger
transmitter based on new principles. Due to lack of the funds Tesla was
forced to sell or to return the devices and apparatus, he gathered in the
Wardenclyffe tower facility, which intended to use to operate the tower. He
left the tower in 1907 and since then he was mainly engaged in inventions
that were not directly related to the electrical engineering. The unfinished
magnifying transmitter on Long Island was demolished in June 1917 by the
American government.