The following is an excerpt from “Theory of Wireless Power” by Eric Dollard, a paper containing many essential formulae and supporting data necessary to understand the Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires. It discusses and diagrams the Marconi Wireless station based at Bolinas, California, circa 1919. Unlike many erroneous modern theories of how Tesla achieved his goal, this paper is based on real work with a Tesla Magnifying Transmitter. Illustrated with charts & diagrams. Stapled, 69pp. $14.95 + shipping.
In the period from 1890 to 1900, Dr. Nikola Tesla was engaged in the systematic research of high frequency electric waves with the specific aim of developing a method for transmission and reception of electric energy without the use of connecting wires. Inspired by Dr. Heinrich Hertz’s experimental researches into the Maxwell theory of electro-magnetic waves. Dr. Tesla developed various apparatus with the object of exploring the developments of Dr. Hertz. Tesla found his progress slow until he developed his oscillating current (O.C.) transformer, known as the Tesla Transformer, which allowed for his progress beyond the original experiments of Dr. Hertz and thus beyond the original theory of electro-magnetism.
Tesla found to his dismay that it was not possible to demonstrate that the emanations from his O.C. transformer were akin to the transverse vibrations of light waves as theorized by Maxwell, which Dr. Hertz among others sought to verify. At this point Tesla began to doubt if the Maxwell theory had any validity. To quote, “For more than 10 years I have been reading treatises, reports of scientific transactions, and articles on Hertz-wave theory, to keep myself informed, but they have always impressed me like works of fiction.”
What Tesla had discovered was that the emanations from his O.C. transformer were of longitudinal-dielectric waveform; that is, in the form of ELECTRIC RAYS OF INDUCTION. This indicates the purpose of Tesla’s extensive research into the X-rays and kindred forms of radiation, which were considered longitudinal waves in the luminiferous aether by Tesla and his contemporaries.
The theories of electric waves were of no concern to G. Marconi however, and by his adaptation of Dr. Tesla’s fundamental patents went on to establish commercial wireless communication. By 1919 Marconi completed construction of five high frequency power plants around the world. These plants generated currents at a frequency of 18,000 cycles / second, produced by 200 kilowatt motor-generator sets. The alternators employed in these M.G. sets were fashioned after those developed by Tesla but became known as the Alexanderson alternators, after C.P. Steinmetz’s protégé, Ernst F. W. Alexanderson. These alternators delivered currents to what is called the multiple loaded flat top antenna. A diagram and equivalent circuit of the Bolinas, California plant is show in figure (1).
Upon completion of these wireless plants in 1919, the U.S. government established the Radio Corporation of America (R.C.A.) to take control of the plants constructed upon U.S. territory. R.C.A., Marconi Wireless Co., and others went on to develop wireless (now radio) communication based upon transverse, or Hertzian, waveforms. The culmination of the transverse wave antenna was the R.C.A. type “D” director, later to become the well known rhombi antenna, figure (2).
These developments firmly entrenched the use of Hertzian waves in the practice of wireless communication, thereby diverting interest from the waveforms discovered by Dr. Nikola Tesla. Tesla’s progress in commercial development was further delayed by his absolute insistence upon establishing a perfect system, the “World System”, of wireless power and communication. The World System was much more costly and complex than the simple installations of Marconi. To quote Dr. Tesla’s thoughts about the development of wireless at this point in history: “The commercial application of the art has led to the construction of larger transmitters and multiplication of their number, greater distances had to covered and it became imperative to employ receiving devices of ever greater sensitiveness. All these changes have co-operated in emphasizing the trouble and seriously impairing the reliability and value of the plants. To such a degree has this been a case that conservative business men and financiers have gone to look upon this method of conveying intelligence as one offering but very limited possibilities, and the Government has deemed it advisable to assume control. This unfortunate state of affairs, fatal to the enlistment of capital and healthful competitive development, could have been avoided had electricians not remained to this day under the delusive theory and had the practical exploiters of this advance not permitted enterprise to outrun technical competence.”
Dr. Tesla remained unswayed by these commercial developments and their impact upon scientific thought. Tesla understood that the transverse, or Hertzian, waveform was useless for the transmission of electrical energy on an industrial scale. The scattering nature of these waves represents the primary limitation to efficient energy transfer, to quote: “Nothing illustrates this better than the recent demonstrations of a number of experts with very short waves, which have created the impression that power will be eventually transmitted by such means. In reality, experiments of this kind are the very denial of the possibility of economic transmission of electric energy.” (This of course brings to mind the recent proposal to transmit from a satellite in outer space megawatts of photo-voltaic energy via a microwave beam down to the earth’s surface.)
The Tesla System
The system of transmission and reception of electrical energy without the employment of connecting wires, or waveguides, as conceived by Dr. Tesla IS NOT the propagation of any type of electromagnetic wave, nor is it the excitation of the earth-ionosphere waveguide. Tesla’s system employs resonant actions along lines, or rays, of ELECTRIC INDUCTION, these lines standing between the transmitter and the receiver, figure (3). The apparatus for establishing these lines of induction is called the Tesla Magnifying Transmitter (T.M.T.). The T.M.T. is a system of resonant transformers harmonically balanced to the electric condition of the earth. The mono-polar nature of the T.M.T. induction facilitates the ease of transmission and reception that this apparatus exhibits.
These lines of induction established by the T.M.T. are drawn into the high inductivity of the earth’s interior, despite the conductivity of the surface, which would screen electro-magnetic waves. To illustrate this point, consider Tesla’s description of an experiment: “I have here a short and wide tube which is exhausted to a high degree and covered with a substantial coating of bronze, the coating allowing barely the light to shine through. A metallic clasp, with a hook for suspending the tube, is fastened around the middle portion of the latter, the clasp being in contact with the bronze coating. I now want to light the gas inside by suspending the tube on a wire connected to a coil. Any one who would try the experiment for the first time, not having any previous experience, would probably take care to be quite alone when making the trial, for fear that he might become the joke of his assistants. Still, the bulb lights in spite of the metal coating, and the light can be distinctly perceived through the latter. A long tube covered with aluminum bronze lights when held in one hand – the other touching the terminal of the coil – quite powerfully. It might be objected that the coatings are not sufficiently conducting; still, even if they were highly resistant, they ought to screen the gas. They certainly screen it perfectly in a condition of rest, but not by far perfectly when the charge is surging in the coating. But the loss of energy which occurs within the tube, not withstanding the screen, is occasioned principally by the presence of the gas. Were we to take a large hollow metallic sphere and fill it with a perfect incompressible fluid dielectric, there would be no loss inside the sphere, and consequently the inside might be considered as perfectly screened, though the potential be very rapidly alternating. Even were the sphere filled with oil, the loss would be incomparably smaller than when the fluid is replaced by a gas, for in the latter case the force produces displacements; that means impact and collisions on the inside.”
The dielectric induction through the interior of the earth communicates the energy from the transmitter to the receiver as shown by figure (4). The unused portion of energy is reflected back to the transmitter more or less completely. Operating this energy reciprocation between transmitter and receiver at the natural period and waveshape of the earth’s own energy pulsation rate greater overcomes the effect of distance, hence no significant loss of energy is apparent. Thus a standing wave of induction energy exists between the transmitter and receiver, or what can be called transponders, pulsating at one of the earth’s natural harmonics. If the phase angle of the earth pulsation frequency lags the phase angle of the pulsating frequency then energy is abstracted from the earth’s supply and delivered as “free energy” to the transponders.
It can therefore be seen that while the transmission of transverse waves involves the spraying of energy, with its consequent square law diminishment of energy density, and not hope of retrieving the unused energy, the Tesla system involves the direct connection of transmitter and receiver, via the pulsating lines of electric induction. Therefore, the transmitter and receiver are rendered as one apparatus.
“Theory of Wireless Power” by Eric Dollard. Stapled, 69pp.
$14.95 + shipping.
CONTENTS: Nikola Tesla and the True Wireless; Induction in the Dimension of Time; Theoretical Concepts of Tesla’s Discoveries; Induction in the Dimension of Space; Transverse and Longitudinal Components; Product of Quadrature Conjugate Inductions; etc.