Hertzian Wave Wireless TelegraphyFleming, J. A. (John Ambrose), Sir
Science
Hertzian Wave Wireless Telegraphy
Fleming, J. A. (John Ambrose), Sir
Electric waves; Telegraph, Wireless
As already remarked, the aerial wire or radiator as used in Marconi
telegraphy may be looked upon as a kind of ether organ-pipe or siren
tube, and its electrical phenomena are in every respect similar to the
acoustic phenomena of the ordinary closed organ-pipe. When the aerial
is sounding its fundamental ether note, the conditions which pertain
are that there is a current flowing into the aerial at the lower end,
but at that point the variation in potential is very small, whereas at
the upper end there is no current, but the variations of potential are
very large. Accordingly, we say that at the upper end of the aerial
there is an antinode of potential and a node of current, and at the
bottom an antinode of current and a node of potential. By altering the
frequency of the electrical impulses we can create in the aerial an
arrangement of nodes of current or potential corresponding to the
overtones of a closed organ-pipe. But whatever may be the arrangement
the conditions must always hold that there is a node of current at
the upper end and an antidote of current at the lower end. In other
words, there are large variations of current at the place where the
aerial terminates on the spark-gap and no current at the upper end.
The first harmonic is formed where there is a node of potential at
one-third of the length of the aerial from the top. In this case we
have a node of potential not only at the lower end of the wire, but at
two-thirds of the way up. In the same way we can create in the closed
organ-pipe, by properly overblowing the pipe, a region about
two-thirds of the way up the pipe, where the pressure changes in the
air are practically no greater than they are at the mouthpiece. We can
make evident visually in a beautiful manner the existence of similar
stationary electrical waves in an aerial by means of an ingenious
arrangement devised by Dr. Georg Seibt, of Berlin. It consists of a
very long silk-covered copper wire, A (see Fig. 10), wound in a close
spiral of single layer round a wooden rod six feet long and about two
inches in diameter. This rod is insulated, and at the lower end the
wire is connected to a Leyden jar circuit, consisting of a Leyden jar
or jars and an inductance coil, L, the inductance of which can be
varied. Oscillations are set up in this jar circuit by means of an
induction-coil discharge, and the lower end of the long spiral wire is
attached to one point on the jar circuit. In this manner we can
communicate to the bottom end of the long spiral wire a series of
electric impulses, the time period of which depends upon the capacity
of the jar and the inductance of the discharge circuit. We can,
moreover, vary this frequency over wide limits. Parallel to the long
spiral wire is suspended another copper wire, E (see Fig. 10), and
between this wire and the silk-covered copper wire discharges take
place due to the potential difference between each part of the wire
and this long aerial wire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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