Re: All that glisters is not gold

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, brian whatcott wrote:

> This reminds me of a transmission line method that is not much used -
> the uniax. It starts with a large diameter coax to transmit RF energy
>  Then the coax shield becomes a divergent cone, leaving just the central
> conductor.

Yeah, also known as the "g-line."  It's one of those technologies where
conventional physics overlaps into "weird science", because in my opinion
it forms the basis of Nikola Tesla's "longitudinal electromagnetic
waves"...  which are actually not longitudinal at all.  If a Uniax
transmission system was run at 100KHZ, using the entire earth as the
dielectric-covered single wire, then a large tesla coil acts as a
"launcher", and smaller tesla coils act as "catchers".  A single-wire
power transmission scheme!  With the entire earth as the single wire!  Yet
it's entirely explicable by conventional EM physics.  The Uniax concept
lets Nikola Tesla's weird discoveries be welcomed back into the fold of
conventional physics.  I suspect that many Tesla fans will not like this
at all.    :)


>  At the far end, a similar arrangement to 'capture' the wave again.
> This is reputed to have possibly the lowest transmission loss available.
>  But it is delicate, on several counts apparently: delicate to the weather,
>  of course - but the uniax cannot turn corners either - the wave becomes
> detached, one hears...

There were articles about it in QST ham radio magazine decades ago.
Apparantly it will not work with bare wire, a dielectric sheath is needed.
It's more akin to an electromagnetic analog of the tin-can telephone, than
to a normal electric circuit.  If we sketch the pattern of positive and
negative regions of charge along the single wire, then draw the e-field
lines, then add the b-field lines caused by the moving regions of charge,
we get little "puffs" of poynting-vector field which are racing along the
wire and only weakly coupled to it (like a sort of inside-out waveguide.)
Bend the wire too much, and the energy flys out straight rather than
following the curve.  I searched the www for info on "g-line" but drew a
blank.  Perhaps "uniax"  will get some hits.

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William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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