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 in all other cases of oscillatory motion, the principle of
resonance may here be brought into play to increase immensely the
amplitude of the current oscillations thereby set up in the receiving
aerial. As already explained, any vertical insulated wire placed with
its lower end near the earth has capacity with respect to the earth,
and it has also inductance, the value of these factors depending on
its shape and height. Accordingly, it has a natural electrical
time-period of its own, and if the periodic electromotive impulses
which are set up in it by the passage of the waves over it agree in
period with its own natural time-period, then the amplitude of the
current vibrations in it may become enormously greater than when there
is a disagreement between these two periods. Before concluding these
articles we shall return to this subject of electric resonance and
syntony, and discuss it with reference to what is called the tuning of
Hertzian wave stations. Meanwhile, it may be said that for the sake of
obtaining, at any rate in an approximate degree, this coincidence of
time-period, it is generally usual to make the receiving aerial as far
as possible identical with the transmitting aerial. If the receiving
aerial is not insulated, but is connected to the earth at its lower
end through the primary coil of an oscillation transformer, we can
still set up in it electrical oscillations by the impact on it of an
electric wave of proper period; and if the oscillation transformer is
properly constructed we can draw from its secondary circuit electric
oscillations in a similar period.
One problem in connection with the design of a receiving aerial is
that of increasing its effective length and capacity so as to increase
correspondingly the electromotive force or current oscillations in it.
It is clear that if we put a number of receiving wires in parallel so
that each one of them is operated upon by the wave separately,
although we can increase in this way the magnitude of the alternating
current which can be drawn off from the aerial, we cannot increase the
electromotive force in it except by increasing the actual height of
the wires. Unfortunately, there is a limit to the height of the
receiving aerial. It has to be suspended, like the transmitting
aerial, from a mast or tower, and the engineering problem of
constructing such a permanent supporting structure higher than, say,
two hundred feet is a difficult one.
Since any one station has to send as well as receive, it is usual to
make one and the same aerial wire or wires do double duty. It is
switched over from the transmitting to the receiving apparatus, as
required. This, however, is a concession to convenience and cost. In
some respects it would be better to have two separate aerials at each
station, the one of the best form for sending, and the other of the
best form for receiving.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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