Tesla’s High Voltage and High Frequency Generators with Oscillatory Circuits

Abstract

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.