http://f3wm.free.fr/sciences/jefimenko.html
"ALTHOUGH no one can make a perpetual motion machine, anyone can tap the earth's electric field to run a homemade motor perpetually. The field exists in the atmosphere between the earth's surface and the ionosphere as an electric potential of about 360 000 volts. Estimates of the stored energy range from a million kilowatts to a billion kilowatts. Energy in this form cannot be drawn on directly for driving ordinary electric motors. Such motors develop mechanical force through the interaction of magnetic fields that are generated with high electric current at low voltage, as Michael Faraday demonstrated in 1821. The earth's field provides relatively low direct current at high voltage, which is ideal for operating electrostatic motors similar in principle to the machine invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1748. Motors of this type are based on the force of mutual attraction between unlike electric charges and the mutual repulsion of like charges. The energy of the field can be tapped with a simple antenna in the form of a vertical wire that carries one sharp point or more at its upper end. During fair weather the antenna will pick up potential at the rate of about 100 volts for each meter of height between the points and the earth's surface up to a few hundred feet. At higher altitudes the rate decreases. During local thunderstorms the pickup can amount to thousands of volts per foot. A meteorological hypothesis is that the field is maintained largely by thunderstorms, which pump electrons out of the air and inject them into the earth through bolts of lightning that continuously strike the surface at an average rate of 200 strokes per second. Why not tap the field to supplement conventional energy resources ? Several limitations must first be overcome. For example, a single sharp point can draw electric current from the surrounding air at a rate of only about a millionth of an ampere. An antenna consisting of a single point at the top of a 60-foot wire could be expected to deliver about a microampere at 2 000 volts; the rate is equivalent to .002 watt. A point-studded balloon tethered by a wire at an altitude of 75 meters might be expected to deliver .075 watt. A serious limitation appears as the altitude of the antenna exceeds about 200 meters. The correspondingly higher voltages become difficult to confine. At an altitude of 200 meters the antenna should pick up some 20 000 volts. Air conducts reasonably well at that potential. Although nature provides effective magnetic materials in substances such as iron, nickel and cobalt, which explains why the electric-power industry developed around Faraday's magnetic dynamo, no comparably effective insulating substances exist for isolating the high voltages that would be required for electrostatic machines of comparable power. Even so, electrostatic motors, which are far simpler to build than electromagnetic ones, may find applications in special environments such as those from which magnetism must be excluded or in providing low power to apparatus at remote, unmanned stations by tapping the earth's field. Apart from possible applications electrostatic motors make fascinating playthings. They have been studied extensively in recent years by Oleg D. Jefimenko and his graduate students at West Virginia University. The group has reconstructed models of Franklin's motors and developed advanced electrostatic machines of other types. Although Franklin left no drawing of his motor, his description of it in a letter to Peter Collinson, a Fellow of the Royal Society, enabled Jefimenko to reconstruct a working model [ see Fig 1 ]. Essentially the machine consists of a rimless wheel that turns in the horizontal plane on low-friction bearings." >> >> Main problem seems to be that with all the solid-state opportunities >> for various forms of "coherers," no one has >> picked up any signals of significance to reproduce even a smidgen of his >> effect. Why is that? >> >> Hal > > I think it is because if anyone picked up such a signal the > world would be overloaded with fried "Hams". > Moray's results under a thundercloud not withstanding. :-) > > Fred OTOH, there is a ubiquitous 120 volt per meter fair-weather field potential near earth ground that would put a 1,200 - 10,000 volt positive potential on the 10-80 ft height by 80-200 ft long above-ground horizontal antenna feeding a parallel LC tuning circuit ( a coil and a glass sheet? capacitor) in series with the variable resistance metal-filings "Coherer" which is in series with the incandescent filament light bulbs and/or an ~ 600 watt electric flatiron all with a very high coefficient of resistance temperature-current, leading into a good earth ground. IOW, this an open-ended transmission line (Line-To-Ground LC) that might by happenstance hit a resonance point that could set up some husky HF (Megahz?) oscillations off the ~26,000 coulomb excess electron charge of the earth, that could do something strange enough to vindicate Dr. Moray's 1909 - 1930s anachronistic sojourn into solid state physics. IOW II, you have a gigaohm/meter internal resistance battery D.C.-wise but, if RF oscillation sets in, it's a whole different ball game, and if perchance you succeed, the FCC will be knocking on you door shortly after. Fred
