Two things confuse me about my idea that Ron's device is picking up RF energy from the AM radio tower.
1. It *must* resonate exactly to a harmonic of the AM station To intercept large wattage as Ron is doing, the loopstick coil must exhibit a very sharp resonance to create a large voltage. And sharp resonance has narrow bandwidth. What are the chances that his coil's natural frequency would land right on an upper harmonic of the AM station? At the very least, I'd think that he'd need a big pile of loopstick coils, and he would find that only one of them would happen to hit the right frequency. The others would only work if the number of windings was tweaked. 2. It would have to chop the AM carrier to create upper harmonics. I doubt that the AM station is broadcasting powerful upper harmonics which resonate with the loopstick coil. However, it's very easy for the LEDs to chop the AM signal and create a whole collection of higher frequencies. Nonlinear devices near powerful transmitters create unwanted harmonics. However, in order to do this, the LEDs have to already be lit, and system already has to be oscillating at the upper frequencies! So his stand-alone device should not start up by itself. To get started would need to be "zapped" somehow, perhaps by touching it with a finger, or shorting parts out with a screwdriver, etc. After the first tiny pulse, the LEDs would flash briefly, which would "twang" the resonant coil, which would oscillate and goose things into operation. And if it was disconnected from ground, it would probably stay dark if reconnected, and need another tiny "zap" to get itself going. So an artifact of AM tower RF would probably have two features: only a very special loopstick coil would work, and others would not. And also there would be some "hysterisis," where the device could be turned on and off by touching the right parts with a screwdriver. PS Here's a very good test for artifactual AM energy pickup: THE AM SIGNAL IS MODULATED. If it's powering the LEDs, then their light would *have* to be modulated with audio. If they're not, then it's not the AM station that's powering them. So, if a small silicon photovoltaic sensor was hooked to the input of an audio amplifier, with loudspeakers connected to the output, and the sensor was held near the lit LEDs... would we hear a hum? A buzz? A chaotic fractal signal indicative of 1/F spectrum from the Casmir underworld of electromagnetism? Or would we hear an AM disk jockey playing music tracks? (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb at amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 425-222-5066 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
