Hi Jack,

So could I light up a 100 watt light bulb with one terminal stuck in the earth
out in the middle of a field and the other to the hot side of an AC
circuit?...I guess so.

The Earth is the ultimate return path I guess. The neutral as I understand it
is the center tap of the high voltage step down transformer which takes two hot
leads from the high voltage line and steps it down to 240V with a center tap
being the "neutral". The neutral is then grounded for extra safety. The neutral
(center tap) does not need to be grounded to provide the return path, but what
my question is why the Earth per se is also a return path? I guess being such a
large mass it is theoretically a zero potential.

Would my theoretical light bulb get brighter as I drove the rod deeper into the
earth?


Bill K6TAJ

Jack Painter wrote:

"zeno" wrote
Oddly enough this circuit only used the hot side of the AC
outlet and a cold water pipe ground to the chassis of the
transmitter. Our house was built in the early 40s if that
tells you anything about how they wired outlets in those
days.

My question:
If I were to take a volt (amp) meter and put one probe in the
hot side of an AC house outlet and the other probe to a metal
rod stuck in the ground out in the middle of a field
somewhere (presumably nowhere near a neutral leg), what would
my meter read and why?
Deep electro-philosophical answers welcome as long as it is
expressed in terms a child could understand. (It seems that
this little odd transmitter circuit avoided the neutral leg
altogether-- just used the hot side and a ground).
Bill K6TAJ

Hi Bill,

Ground is referenced at both the generating station and your home in order
to complete the circuit. In your home's service mains panel, ground and
neutral are bonded together. Before the days of the third wire, added purely
for safety in the event of an equipment fault, a faulted piece of equipment
still had a return path, just not the added measure we have today of a very
short ground path (no pun intended) G

With a properly resistive load you could still perform your field exercise,
but it would have nothing to do with avoiding a nearby neutral wire which
serves the same function anyway. Neutral was always and still is, the return
path of a parallel circuit, nothing more or less. It is cold when no load is
connected to it and hot (minus the resistance-consumed current of a load
applied) when a load is connected.

73's

Jack
Virginia Beach, VA