Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son
John Stuart Mill · en
On the other hand suppose the gangs came from different parts of the
town and disliked each other. He wouldn't have nearly the trouble. Each
gang would be yelling at the other as they went along: "You'd better
beat it. He knows all right, all right, who broke that bush down by the
gate. Just wait till he catches you." They'd get out a little easier,
each in the hope the other crowd would catch it from the owner. There's
a case where their mutual relations, their mutual inductance, makes the
job easier.
That's true of coils with inductance. Suppose you wind two inductance
coils and connect them in series. If they are at right angles to each
other as in Fig. 46a they have no effect on each other. There is no
mutual inductance. But if they are parallel and wound the same way like
the coils of Fig. 46b they will act like a single coil of greater
inductance. If the coils are parallel but wound in opposite directions
as in Fig. 46c they will have less inductance because of their mutual
inductance. You can check these statements for yourself if you'll refer
back to Letter 10 and see what happens in the same way as I told you in
discussing Fig. 28.
[Illustration: Fig 46a]
[Illustration: Fig 46b]
If the coils are neither parallel nor at right angles there will be some
mutual inductance but not as much as if they were parallel. By turning
the coils we can get all the variations in mutual relations from the
case of Fig. 46b to that of Fig. 46c. That's what we arrange to do in a
variable inductance of the variometer type.
[Illustration: Fig 46c]
There is another way of varying the mutual inductance. We can make one
coil slide inside another. If it is way inside, the total inductance
which the two coils offer is either larger than the sum of what they can
offer separately or less, depending upon whether the windings are in the
same direction or opposite. As we pull the coil out the mutual effect
becomes less and finally when it is well outside the mutual inductance
is very small.
Now we have several methods of varying capacity and inductance and
therefore we are ready to vary the frequency of our audion oscillator;
that is, "tune" it, as we say. In my next letter I shall show you why we
tune.
Now for the rule which I promised. The frequency to which a circuit is
tuned depends upon the product of the number of mil-henries in the coil
and the number of microfarads in the condenser. Change the coil and the
condenser as much as you want but keep this product the same and the
frequency will be the same.
[Footnote 5: More accurately the number is 6,286,000,000,000.]
LETTER 13
TUNING
DEAR RADIO ENTHUSIAST: