"John Smith" wrote in message
...
Shield the coil, the coronas effect is still as powerful on florescents,
vtvms detecting voltage... that voltage may well be inducing a magnetic
field as it is conducted by air/ether/ground... but it looks to me like
the voltage is the main force... rfi will tear up a neighborhood too...

Warmest regards,
John

Since I have never had experience with a Tesla coil, this is all relatively
new to me. After a little research I found the following information,
which may be of interest.

The Tesla coil design reference at
http://home.wtal.de/herbs_teslapage/design.html provides an Excel spread
sheet showing all the appropriate parameters. The spread sheet example
shows a single gap spark transmitter, of input power 375 W at a frequency of
322 kHz. Since the wavelength is relatively long, at 932 m, the near
field/far field transition is very close to the radiating structure, which
will include the conductive arc plasma.

Near field/far field transition is approximated as (2D^2)/lambda, where D is
the largest dimension of the radiating structure, and lambda is the
wavelength.

The observable effects you mention are therefore most likely due to far
field effects. The E/H ratio is still a constant at 377 ohms. From the
above formula you can see that you would have to be very close to the souce
for any inductive or capacative coupling to occur.

Having heard of Tesla coils I never realized they were only simple spark gap
transmitters.

73,

Frank