Stealing Energy From Radio towers Using Plasma (ft. Geerling Engineering)

[@PlasmaChannel]

Thanks to both Jeff and Ground News! Go to ground.news/plasma for a data-driven, objective way to stay fully informed on physics and more. Save 40% on Ground News’ unlimited access Vantage plan. View Geerling Engineering's video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/raundnx4pcd_iM0

[@swashed.]

you missed the link to jeff's channel in the description, can you please update it so I can watch the original video haha

[@Yourmomh0u5e]

So are birds are safe to land on the tower unless they ground themselves?

[@JeffGeerling]

@@swashed.still working on the edit! Had a baby arrive a little early so our video is delayed. It'll be later this week.

[@Wolforce]

i've wondered if youtubers who say "i've used for years" are actually telling the truth.

[@swashed.]

​@@JeffGeerling Oh the man himself, Congratulations on the new addition! Thanks for the info re the video, much appreciated

[@ricky4673]

So when my radio station blips and stops transmitting, I know whats happening. Some one is cooking hotdogs.

[@timodecuba5137]

i think so 🤣

[@GilaBert-sq4hj]

The exact reason 👌😁

[@lassefiedler3542]

Or some poor bloke (or animal) is being cooked like a hotdog…

[@RaymenNumerals]

Not even medium rare😪​@@lassefiedler3542

[@noobhero6661]

I was thinking the exact same thing xD

[@GeerlingEngineering]

It was so fun having you out at the tower site! We're still working on our video about the effects on the broadcast and transmitter, but it's great to see all the RF magic going on here!

[@MikinessAnalog]

I remember seeing one of your videos where you had pulled the charred remains away from the output that was effecting signal strength.

[@MeppyMan]

I’m curious if cooking food on the tower impacts the audio for listeners? 😂

[@MikinessAnalog]

@@MeppyMan Yes, it weakens the RF output because anything containing moisture touching it would be seen as a "short" or close to a dead short.

[@bradhafichuk]

@@MeppyMan I would think it does! But I also would think it's only folks on the fringes of the station that would really be impacted enough to matter and they probably would change the tuner somewhere else. What do you think?

[@JeffGeerling]

@@bradhafichukwe will see... :)

[@davidgekler]

One cold day, here in Southern California(HA) I went with the chief engineer of our AM radio station to the antenna site. We weren't broadcasting. Walking up to the transmitter building we could see a line of something burnt going all the way to the building door, whatever it was, it was totally incinerated. Inside the burnt line continued, all the way to the Transmitter cabinet. Turned out ... ANTS had made a trail from one leg of the tower to the actual transmitter!

[@tedoptional-p8l]

When lighting hits one of those towers, ants aren't necessary, it will get you. I have seen it melt aluminum. The reason it doesn't take down the tower is that it travels on the outside of the conductor and it is brief.

[@Socaltransit]

Out of curiosity, could you say what the station was?

[@chauvinemmons]

​@@tedoptional-p8lso you would be saying that the resistance of the conductor itself it's too high for the voltage penetrate more than skin deep

[@bwfvc7770]

Fire Ants? They're attracted to electrical energy.

[@tomsmith6513]

@@tedoptional-p8l is that the skin effect?

[@boutrosboutrosboutrosboutros]

My uncle was a ham radio guy, and built his own amplifiers. He built a 14,000 W amplifier that had a huge vacuum tube in it! It was very cool. (and illegal!) He would have me go out after dark and hold a fluorescent light tube up in the air near the antenna, I was probably 12 feet away, and the fluorescent light would light up bright! He also showed me some other cool stuff, he built a long wire antenna, which was a wire that ran about a half an acre across his property. He showed me that he could key his microphone and a couple seconds later we would hear that sound again. He explained it was his signal, skipping all the way around the planet off of the atmosphere and coming back to his radio! I learned a lot from this guy!

[@olligesd9343]

Have you had any children? Enough power to excite the gasses in a fluorescent tube and you were holding it? Surprised it didn't make you sterile!

[@williamrbuchanan4153]

Pyramids have come to mind. They had a huge glass envelope seems it was to,do with the electricity collection of the pyramid.

[@iROBODUDE]

I did the same thing with 100 watts on a CB amplifier on my truck. I could key up and light a 4' fluorescent tube and walk around my truck and keep it brightly lit. I could also transmit through any speaker that was within about 50'. My large base station antenna with 150 watts would wipe out my neighbors TV's with my audio, coming out their speakers.

[@RyanTaylor4real]

Was his name Tesla?

[@cornelionsqween8028]

so uh, how's the cancer treatment going?

[@chrisduden7382]

Tesla's failed dream - Very intertaining presentation - Clean delivery - Exellent work - Im a fan of the content

[@JeffGeerling]

Any time you're back in St. Louis, we'll do some more Midwestern science experiments! 😂

[@justinbanks2380]

As a Midwesterner just south of STL, that 'midwestern science experiment' statement can go a lot of ways. From actual experiments, to ones soaked with Busch Light and sunburns, lol

[@matthewjohnson9746]

Please tell me you got Jay the St Louis classic: Ooey Gooey Butter Cake?

[@justinbanks2380]

@@matthewjohnson9746 or toasted ravs as apparently that's not a thing other places? (The butter cake I knew was local, but toasted ravs? Still blows my mind.)

[@JeffGeerling]

@@matthewjohnson9746we tried!! Unfortunately the place we stopped was out - Bike Shop in St. Charles. He got some gooey butter/brownie but it's not quite the same. He'll just have to come back. And we'll do T-ravs too.

[@Eternally-Oriented]

Come create a plasma twister in nado alley, at Tulsa Ok!

[@gormauslander]

"Take it from a guy that's seen the remains of a guy that...eugh" Yeah, that's sufficiently terrifying, will do.

[@stevengill1736]

It made me wonder what the heck those high voltage gloves are made of....

[@Shinzon23]

They used to be made out of asbestos ​@@stevengill1736

[@alexcrow2905]

@@stevengill1736 Yes, that sausage certainly gives me the willies ;-) The gloves are just a failsafe, the sausage is connected to the ground of the antenna at the other end, so any power goes down the ground cable and not via the stick to the person. If you put your own "sausage" against the tower, even when standing on an insulating platform, you'd still get horribly burnt as the capacitance of your body to ground would be enough to conduct a fair bit of current. At these frequencies, you'd not really feel a shock as such, and there is some "skin effect" in play (higher frequency travels over the surface rather than inside a conductor) but the huge power levels will cause serious external and internal burns. High conductivity paths such as nerves and blood vessels will carry most of the non-surface current, so think of the blood boiling in your veins and arteries and your nerves exploding like overloaded wire fuses. I remember a story of a chap in the cadet force at my school holding on to the whip antenna on a vehicle while it was transmitting, probably less than 100W. He had some blistering on his hand, but more painful were the deep pinprick holes where the arc had charred tiny paths deep into the living tissue, nerves and all. Needless to say he was sent back home to recover.

[@glynnetolar4423]

FYI, ask most hams. RF burns go beyond surface level. Just a safety tip.

[@olligesd9343]

I did satellite communications for the USAF, one of the stories the instructors would use was of a security guard at an antenna installation (I forget where) that liked a spot by the antennas that he could keep warm during the winter. They found him at shift change dead in a folding chair, as all of his organs were cooked. This of course on a chapter of the curriculum dealing with radiation hazards, and radiation hazard zones. I've also heard of mountaintop tropospheric scatter antennas able to pop birds if they flew in front of the antenna. RF radiation is no joke folks!

[@Tonyhawkin]

YES PLASMA CHAD! BUILD IT!!!

[@brlinf06398]

YES

[@Damicske]

Build the rectifier part with mosfets ;) use high voltage capacitors / make it so it auto disconnects from the coil :)

[@AarushA.S]

Ya

[@techno_john]

DEW IT!

[@wurstelei1356]

@@Damicske Also maybe use high voltage diodes, since those blew up at first.

[@QuinnMallory-od1hw]

Nikola Tesla's final achievement that no one allowed him to build or profit from.

[@aristeski]

It'd be awesome if we could rediscover his work and try applying it to our modern lives! 🙂 Love Nikola Tesla's ideas! Brilliant genius that far too few know about.

[@SimonBauer7]

it wasnt done because its stupidly inefficient. you waste so much energy. There is a reason why stuff like a Transformer have iron cores to minimize the stray magnetic fields. any electrical engineer will tell you that

[@mikelfawcett]

It is amazing to see his work being put into place. Excited to see the future of this. It could change the world completely.

[@AndrewLugo]

It's such a nice idea to believe that Nikola Tesla had figured out some magic that has been malevolently squashed out of existence never to be discovered again! Except we know how to wirelessly transmit power, we also know that the inverse square law makes it extremely impractical and inefficient. I shutter to think of a world in which have 100x as many power plants all running flat out because people don't want the inconvenience of having to plug in their phone at night.

[@gotherecom]

Frequency, Vibration, Resonance

[@RideGasGas]

Nice :) Enjoyed this and will look for Jeff's video. Radio communications engineer with 45+ years of experience and this stuff never gets old!

[@shubus]

I remember reading a few years ago where some guy in the vicinity of one of these towers setup a massive resonant coil/capacitor circuit to siphon off power from the transmitter. In a nearby town folks were complaining about low signal quality. So of course the guy got caught and to take done his system. Have always wondered exactly how much power he was able to draw.

[@JeffGeerling]

We actually run into that when some less scrupulous tower builders don't detune their nearby towers appropriately. It can really suck down the signal in that direction!

[@FLPhotoCatcher]

Here in middle Tennessee, the local radio stations have become much less clear in recent years. I wonder who is rednecking their hotdog picnic.

[@float32]

@@JeffGeerlingI assume it effectively “shadows” everything behind it, if it’s in the far field?

[@JeffGeerling]

@@float32yep, exactly

[@Buzzhumma]

1.21 gigawatts is what the doc needed!

[@8546Ken]

A 60 Hz arc is actually buzzing at 120 Hz, because both the positive and negative peaks conduct.

[@PlasmaChannel]

Yeah, I shot that sequence and did voiceover for that sequence at 4am in the morning, after editing all night. I cant believe I missed that....it's literally electronics 101. I was sleeeeepy

[@ct6502c]

Something really interesting: Several years ago, I saw a video using a high speed camera that actually showed streetlights flashing because of the alternating current. I always knew lamps must be flashing (too fast for human eyes to see), but it was amazing to actually see it recorded.

[@AHSEN.]

I noticed that too! I thought it seemed too high pitched for 60hz, so I checked a 60hz signal to confirm that the video was higher pitched.

[@rootz420]

​@@ct6502cled lights are the worst for flashing, you can visibly see it

[@RBRM3]

Wow, I'm not sure how I overlooked that smh 😅

[@Ma_X64]

I knew one old man who lived near the AM tower in USSR. It was old private "estate". He needed quite an amount of firewood and coal in winter to keep the house warm. He made a huge flat coil of copper wire on a wall and just connected his electric heater to it. It was an old infrared heater with open heating coil. And it worked. Not that stable but for free.

[@vos2693]

Просто катушку намотал или сделал колебательный контур?

[@Ma_X64]

@@vos2693 Скорей всего просто катушка, потому что контур на низкоомной нагрузке практически бесполезен, т.к. его добротность будет почти нулевая. При этом в ближней зоне антенны даже рандомная катушка больших габаритов собирает очень прилично энергии, а если длину провода под четверть длины волны подогнать, то вообще отлично будет.

[@wecharg]

Was the signal’s range thereby reduced?

[@RBRM3]

If you use wood and charcoal (someone will understand this lol) you can save a lot of wood by using every bit of it in two different stoves.

[@Iam_El_Sol]

Wouldn't the station engineers pick up a drop in power/transmission?

[@RichardGrigonis]

A year after I graduated from college (1979) I found myself living in Harrison, NJ. The next town north is Kearny. I was made aware of an old "town character" living there named "Bennie" (last name escapes me -- indeed, I don't think it was mentioned). Bennie purported to be the last paid assistant to Tesla. He told a story that explained one of Tesla's "magic tricks." As you know, when visitors came to Tesla's lab, he would reach down into the pocket of his lab coat, pull something out, open his palm and there would be a flickering light. After just a few seconds, he would close his hand and put it back in his lab coat. Sounds mystifying, doesn't it? According to Bennie, one day Tesla was adjusting some kind of device in his lab, which was filling the place with "electromagnetic oscillations." In those days, labs (like Edison's) had shelves of samples of substances from all over the world. Tuning his device to a certain frequency, Tesla noted a flickering light in the lab, coming from the shelf devoted to crystalline minerals. One of the samples was flickering. That's what he used for his trick. Upon hearing this story, my initial thought was that the crystals were somehow impregnated with phosphorus, and so any free electrons in the sample would be moved back and forth by the electromagnetic oscillations, bump into the phosphorus, and glow. Additionally, Bennie was said to do something that seemed quite wacky, based on something he learned from his days with Tesla. In the backyard of his home was a pipe about a foot in diameter going into the ground. A metal fence ran around his property, and each post of the fence was on an electrical insulator. A wire between them completed a circuit. Bennie claimed that, at the proper temperature and moisture in the ground, he could pull up 700 watts of power from the "well" and used it to heat his home...! His explanation was that Kearny was at the edge of the New Jersey meadowlands, a marshy area just across the river from New York. It just so happens that this particular area is home to more radio stations than anywhere in the world, each trying to cash in on the lucrative "New York market." In any case, all of these radio stations are electrically grounded down in the brackish (salty) layers of the meadowlands. Bennie somehow could complete a circuit, with the fence presumably picking up radio waves. (From what I know of Maxwell's equations, however, one would think that the power from that would be very small, however.) Bennie claimed that "the guys at Western Electric know how to do it too" but if everybody did it, the power extracted from the ground would be divided among them and thus be miniscule. So, there you have it. Have a nice day!

[@Hamstercat14]

Thank you for being one of the only KZbinrs promoting safety around dangerous equipment. A lot of the engineering culture on KZbin around safety has become a meme about being left out and disregarded. I'm worried about a wave of younger engineers wafting off warnings and blowing up in smoke.

[@Osc-Mod]

When I was in high school we had a Nasa Engineer substitute math for us. He talked about making something similar to your LED circuit. He used these for LED lights in house. (before the led was commercially available. He talked about using the radio waves from the nearby tower to feed the receiver coils he kept on his roof. I never personally put eyes on it but the idea never has left my mind.

[@edisont.picard4112]

The first visible LEDs were red, so he would have been powering red lights in his house. I guess you could see but it would still suck.

[@Osc-Mod]

@@edisont.picard4112 They had Blue with filters ( white) when I was in Highschool. class of 2009

[@IamR3D88]

​@@edisont.picard4112 perfect nightlights

[@ClosestNearUtopia]

So the period he would be talking about would be 1996 to 2002, or he would have used red Leds which I really cant see anyone doing.

[@Osc-Mod]

I would of graduated in 2009 ( i got my GED) so the time is between 2006-2009. Im pretty sure white LEDs where available. I never got a chance to go to his house unfortunately. I had just barely started learning electronics and was asking him about oscillators. He found the idea of building a monosynth was boring and was talking about ripping microcontrollers out of things and reprograming them for more polyphony . At the time this was way beyond my comprehension lol I regret never going over. I could of learned a ton.

[@timesurfingalien]

I used to build these towers. No am but plenty of FM and television. That took me all over the world.

[@Durang0318]

Side note, the mode FM does not only work on line of sight. It's the typical FM frequency range (88-108mhz) that is line of sight.

[@8546Ken]

Actually broadcast FM uses 88-108 Megahertz, not millihertz.

[@stevengill1736]

So it's the capital M that makes it mega? Thank you.... Hmm, a micro hertz would be pretty darned slow!

[@PlasmaChannel]

Lol priceless

[@PlasmaChannel]

Good info, thank you

[@DanDart]

I hear it's more like *everything over about 30 MHz* which is line of sight, so that includes not just broadcast analogue FM but wifi, phones, TV, digital radio and TV, everything else.

[@ericberger394]

Thanks!

[@rhettbaldwin8320]

I lived in Houston when Hurricane Ike came through in 2008. Middle of the night as the hurricane passed over my TV off, suddenly started playing the audio of an unknown radio broadcast. Strangest thing I've ever experienced.

[@kokopelli314]

I worked at a VLF 500kW transmitting station in the 80s. We bounced signals around and through the planet using 100ft arrays and 5ft vacuum tubes. It was the cold war and everything was overkill!

[@roadkillavenger1325]

Mud daubers are extremely docile. It's rare to get stung by them. They're a completely different type of wasp than paper wasps.

[@mfree80286]

Still shouldn't have them in the transmission facility, their nests are a royal PITA even when they aren't bridging conductors (as anyone who's ever had to dig one out of a blind hole in a metal casting and clean the threads can attest).

[@rdw6156]

Mud daubers are not docile I can speak from experience they suck their stings hurt and they are not my friend...I was only 12 years old and all bees can suck an egg

[@oversecus833]

Haven't Mud Daubers caused like 3 airplane crashes?

[@roadkillavenger1325]

@mfree80286 But that wasn't the issue. The issue was that he has an irrational fear of something that wasn't going to hurt him. Fun fact: Most snake bites happen during attempts to ķìĺĺ snakes. Irrational fear causes more problems than it's worth. Lots of people get stung because they have a habit of flailing their arms around in hopes that it will magically ķìĺĺ whatever they're trying to hit.

[@roadkillavenger1325]

@@oversecus833 They sure have. They get in the pitot tubes.

[@krbruner]

I was a radio alignment tech for UHF and VHF two-way radios, such as those used for police and such. One day I was working on a 20 watt handheld and got a little too close to the final (the transistor that drives the power to the antenna). Wow. Now I have been shocked before, a number of times, including from a 30kv neon transformer....and non hurt as much as that RF burn. It honestly felt like taking a glowing hot needle, sticking it into your finger, driving it into the bone. I told my boss, and he said that if I had gotten hit by one of the 100 (or more) watt car-mounted ones, I'd be going home for the day. My finger had this little dark tinge around the spot it happened, for quite some time. I misspoke on the transformer...I recalled the numbers incorrectly. I remembered 15 and 30 but transposed the value they were attached to. It was a 15Kv 30mA max...I mistakenly remembered 30Kv 15mA. It did make for quite a good Jacob's Ladder. It struggled at first to restrike the arc, but I found an article about what was called a Gabriel's Anode, which is just a high resistance resistor connected to one post, with the other side floating near the other post. The arc strikes from the free leg of the resistor, then the arc reaches to the other leg, avoiding the resistor, then travels up the arms.

[@contomo5710]

thats something that always gets quickly lost, and something i had to learn myself tinkering with RF electronics... being used to pumping kW of power into a resonant tank at 100khz, thats only resonating at 300V or so... lower impedance and all, at those frequencies no matching needed. Skin effect... capacitance still too little to cause any pain when touching a resonator. But at the almost all the time used 50 ohms in the RF bands (13.56MHz where i was playing :P) even the lower voltages cause quite some current to flow because of the higher frequencies. i can only imagine VHF and UHF bands to cause any capacitive reactance a fingering guy presents to shoot close to 0

[@jeffreyyoung4104]

I got my RF burn from a cavity oscillator in an aircraft transponder! Same thing happened to my finger, a burn that went deep into the finger, and took a long time to heal. Afterwards I was even MORE careful around the output components.

[@mernokimuvek]

Neon transformers are 15 kV max.

[@jeffreyyoung4104]

@@mernokimuvek With RF burns, it isn't the voltage, but the frequency that gets you. VHF and UHF radios are bad, but microwave frequencies, up into the 10 GHz range are nasty. In my case, the voltage was 7KV, but magnetron voltage could get up into the 25KV range, higher with military radar. And they put in many interlocks to prevent accidents.

[@mernokimuvek]

@@jeffreyyoung4104 I know, but the guy mentioned a 30 kV NST. Which simply doesn't exist.

[@sparky6086]

In the late 1980's the cellphone service provider, that I worked for, built a steel lattace tower which just happened to be in resonance with a nearby AM station. For cell service, we had UHF antennas at the top of the tower, so cell service was unaffected, but because of the tower's physical characteristics coincidentally, making it in resonance with the AM radio station, our cell site tower drained just about all the radiated rf power from the AM station, severely cutting down on the station's range. We ended up getting a specialist who attached steel cables to each corner of the tower going the length of the tower. He pulled them tight, almost like he was tuning a guitar string, until he'd physically changed the resonance of the tower to where it no longer soaked up all the AM station's power.

[@jaysonwallker1648]

Good way to keep the FCC off your butt!!

[@mehamrdio6173]

Thanks!

[@DallasTaylor]

I'm in Riga Latvia and swear I can feel the ambient energy coursing through the area. Recently, I found an old project where I soldered together 3 batteries in parellel from ecigs/vapes like a ladder with small brass strips on the side and a blue led connected to one of the suction switches instead of the heating element. When I made it it would only come on when I blew on the switch, which was the intention, but after about 2 years I found the blue led glowing and it hasn't stopped. Not a flash. I tried to recreate it without the suction switch and a white led, it's been glowing for a few weeks but dimming and could just be normal discharge. When I asked the computer about it it was saying the led could be rectifing ambient ac. I think the batteries are acting as coils and collectors from the brass strips, etc. I'd love to host a visit to see if it could be measured, documented, etc.

[@xjekwkfhzodudidkne]

Those switches are just microphones, literally any noise will set them off, plus passive discharge over time etc

[@mfbfreak]

LEDs can already glow visibly but dimly on microamperes of current. This means that if the switching FET in the vape is ever so slightly leaky, you'll see the LED glow in the dark. And because it's microamperes, and there are about 7500 hours in a year, it will only draw 7,5mAh from the battery. If the battery is 250mAh, in theory it could power the LED for more than 30 years, excluding self discharge.

[@mikescholz6429]

You discovered the perfect video title to get me to click within milliseconds of reading without needing to think about it. This even better than click bait.

[@JCtheMusicMan_]

My favorite demonstration of using plasma to play music is the nerdy Tesla coil scene in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice! 🥰

[@dresdenvisage]

Thanks for your recommendation! That was so cute and cool!! And I always love me some Jay Baruchel!

[@Djevil710]

Tower climber here! When we work on am towers protocol is to not get near the tower before an rf engineer is on site to turn down the voltage we tell all the new guys unless you wanna be burnt to a crisp don’t go over there!

[@milespeterson5049]

I think putting one of those LED voltmeters on your receiver tool would be cool. The closer you get to the tower, the higher the voltage on the meter.

[@ashercorbett8089]

YES PLASMA CHAD! BUILD IT!!!

[@AdMan-The-LabRat]

YES PLASMA CHAD! BUILD IT!!!

[@RonLaws]

It's worth noting that early Crystal radios lacked any form of amplification circuit, the power to drive the loudspeaker came purely from the energy captured by the antenna.

[@RCAvhstape]

All crystal radios work like that. They are fun to build.

[@alexandergmzx]

YES PLASMA CHAD! BUILD IT!!! Jokes aside, when I was a boy in junior high school we had an strange physics laboratory professor who brought a project of an AM power-less radio with a shitty antenna design. The process of building was so long and confusing and I guess it is still getting build in some schools over the world. It is nice to see an easy project that can actually use the AM signals to power a simple LED

[@pheloniouspunk1417]

Dude! That was SO COOL! I really love radio and all things associated. Love the hot dog thing! You know it really brings some of the lofty ideas of electro magnetism and it's related fun into the kind of thing my old fried brain can really get a grip on. Fascinating seeing the shack with the oscillators all humming the radio frequency so cool. Thanks all!

[@petergerdes1094]

Doesn't the power delivered fall off with r^2 -- or at least some finite power -- not exponentially? Or are you talking about weird stuff in near field?

[@MeppyMan]

My first AM radio I built as a kid, was powered from a single wire running from outside my window to the garage a few meters away.

[@8546Ken]

I once saw a Popular Electronics AM radio project using a crystal radio plus a transistor amplifier. It was powered by a resonant circuit tuned to a local high powered AM station while the receiver was tuned with a second tuned circuit to a weaker station.

[@MeppyMan]

@@8546Ken this was a crystal radio. It just had a little earpiece so didn’t need much power. I think we tuned the antenna to one of the local stations. At night I could pick up stations further away.

[@8546Ken]

@@MeppyMan I had two crystal radios when i was a kid. i stretched a long wire antenna from the roof of the house to the roof of the garage. The tricky part was adjusting the cat's whisker.

[@glynnetolar4423]

How old was the kid? I had no idea you could use them for a radio. Sorry, couldn't resist. Yeah, built one of those too. Had really poor selectivity.

[@ojonasar]

I remember back in 89 when I was on a business trip and we visited the Empire State Building on an off day. I kept having weird problems with the video display on my SVHS camcorder and at first thought it was to do with the cold. Later I realised what it was - the radio antennas above me. When I got home, I realised the audio was completely trashed - just radio stations bleeding over each other.

[@JeffGeerling]

We'd love to visit that tower site someday! One of the more interesting urban towers!

[@RCAvhstape]

Back in the days when VHS camcorders were common, video shot aboard the decks of US Navy ships would have a curious periodic static sweep over the video and audio at a regular rate. This was caused by the ship's rotating radar antenna. Every time it swept over the videographer's head you'd get a bit of static. Keep in mind that the radar antenna is way above the deck high up on the ship's mast. Imagine what the power must be like if you were up on the mast.

[@ojonasar]

@@RCAvhstape I remember that from some of my early videos, in my case while being on an jet aircraft while at an airport

[@JeffGeerling]

@@RCAvhstape I imagine you'd not need to wear a sweater on a cold day!

[@RCAvhstape]

@@JeffGeerling Yeah, there are procedures in place to make sure you don't get zotsd by the radar. They announce over the 1MC: "There are men working aloft on board ship, do not rotate, radiate, or energize any electric or electronic equipment, start gas turbines, or operate ship's whistle while men are working aloft on board ship."

[@justinbanks2380]

I love how you say, don't touch anything or you'll die. And your response is, looks like I'm in the right place 😂

[@1833-j4g]

It’s like insane how powerful that is! Hearing the sound come from it without speakers is really surreal.

[@daviddunkelheit9952]

Great collaborative project presentation with Jeff Geerling. Really enjoyed and learned about phenomena. Thanks 🙏

[@zombieregime]

HEY! Thats Geerling Engineering's RF engineer dad person guy!!! As odd as he finds it I could listen to Geerling sr. ramble on about radio infrastructure all day. Yes, nerds like us exist. Yes, we are fun at parties.....if we would get invited to them.....

[@leonsivils1494]

YES PLASMA CHAD! BUILD IT!!!

[@Blackwing2345635]

For me there was a great (and safe) demo of how powerful radio transmission is - you can build a passive radio receiver. It drives speaker only with the energy it receives from a transmitter.

[@Tjita1]

Northern Europes biggest AM transmitter was fairly close to where I live until it was shut down in 2002. People living in my area reports not needing a radio, as Radio Sweden would be perfectly audible from any loosely stacked metal, like the cutlery drawer, the grate in the kitchen oven, or from chain link fences.

[@dafinaglgrrrr8565]

Your sponsor is an incredible service to the media monstrosity of modern day! I hope to join the service soon and commend the creators.

[@vk2zay]

You might want to add a variable coupling loop to the receiver so you can adjust the amount of coupling of the rectifier to the resonator... this would let you tune the entire system for very high efficiency and you'd probably be quite surprised how far away it would work - calculator or watch or something similar with a transreflective LCD screen and low current demands... Alternatively a neon bulb may be a better choice for the display device (although adding a series resistor to the LED would probably save it from damage - true for the diodes too, maybe add a clamping zener etc, lots of ways to make it tolerant of severe overdrive). So close to a high power MW transmitter you should be able to easily get the 80 volts or so needed to ionise the neon bulb, and used in a relaxation oscillator circuit its flash rate would be a good indicator of received signal level. This could also be done with the LED too just require a bit more complexity in the circuit than the basic RC NE-2 flasher. Also consider adding a small piezo speaker to make a click for each discharge to make it usable in direct sunlight. Heck with a switch you could select between ticking rate proportional to signal, or listening to the radio program just as a crystal set. Thinking about it I am kinda tempted to just build this myself for fun... We are both in Seattle right? There must be some MW stations around here we can get close enough to - not that I don't have enough radio transmitters to do this in the lab with a couple of watts.

[@policedog4030]

Another usecase for the principles in this video might be figuring out how to detect the anti-personnel type directed energy weapons (the still classified ones). I think they are combining different energy types (RF, Millimeter, Microwave, UV and Ultra or Infrasound) with a 5 or 6 GHz Mesh Network and beamforming Phased Array or Plasma Antennas to carry out the imaging surveillance, 3D hyperspectral Image capture, and the remote, deniable, invisible touchless torture weapons. Conventional handheld detectors such as GQ Electronics only show spikes in the EF detection circuit from the nominal less than 5 volts per square meter to very rapidly or instantaneously up to over 100 volts per square meter when the victim in the surveilled and attacked interior building space moves his body physically, such as standing up from a sitting position with the meter on a nearby table. Tried the neon bulbs by themselves hoping the legs would act as antennas but they do not light up so will need to try a few circuits and your ideas appear helpful.

[@brine80]

I wish I knew what you two were talking about because I am fascinated by this type of thing, unfortunately I don't very little about radio, AM, FM, etc.... but you two are clearly what I would consider radio geniuses lol. Anyway, thank you for your ideas and input here, maybe someday I will learn and I destiny some of what you guys are referring to here. At the end of the day, its really cool just to see these towers ability to produce so much juice remotely, and I felt like a little kid again when I saw the sausage get smoked against the tower.

[@YodaWhat]

@vk2zay - Megawatt transmitters? I thought those days went out with Analog TV. Apparently the modern Digital TV transmitters use lower power, like hundreds of kW. Now if you are talking about PEAK power, some radars are likely to do that, but they are only short pulses, and are panning all around the sky.

[@josephlieberman3027]

Indeed, and amazing broad and comprehensive comment. My electronix comprehension is imperfect and eratic, yet i try to be aware and i have observed speciffic individuals whom might have been recipient of hi tech covert harasment, it is mainly in hind sight and from reflecting on the behavior changes and extremes compared to the events happening in the persons life at that time,, the insanity and behavior ups and downs correlation with certain interactions this person had attempting to cause fbi, sheriff and police to actual follow through on specific crime reports made. Electronic detection tool would be great,, currently i just avoid being or causing trouble, but i so watch to recognize what undue influence or methods might be actively and covertly employed upon anyone in my observable realm.

[@xpump876]

Amazing that the AM sound was audible in the room w/ the large capacitors! Years ago, I found a discarded Dental X-Ray Transformer - a 28" tall heavy, circular can with an insulated 8"tower and many input taps. A 9v battery was enough to generate a +1"plasma arc. (when I moved, I left it in the apt cellar)

[@jamesvandamme7786]

Magnetostriction is a bitch. I had a problem with it in a 140 KW radar transmitter. I switched solenoid to toroidal chokes in the power supply, and the noise went down many dB. You can sometimes hear it in computer power supplies if the coils aren't gooped up with silicone or something.

[@Mrjobe_]

@@jamesvandamme7786 oh is that what i'm hearing from one of my pc's.. cool. i can fix it now

[@dresdenvisage]

Yay! It's back! It was deleted before i got to your explanation! 😅

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Man, it's so interesting that you can hear the actual audio through those RF components AND the foods with ZERO _regular_ (traditional) speakers!

[@louisdu54]

Small precision : I believe the plasma channel doesn’t expand and contract in a plasma speaker. Changing the amount of energy you put in the plasma channel quickly (like with the AM radio or your plasma speakers circuit) instantly varies the temperature, but the channel’s volume doesn’t have time to change (it physically cannot expand this fast) so the pressure does. Given PV=nRT, we now can set V, n and R constants, giving us P and T proportional, or simply the pressure proportional to the amount of energy be put in each carrier cycle. So the amplitude in an AM signal is directly proportional to the pressure output hence.. sound ! Same applies so a plasma speaker where the pressure before proportional to the duty cycle of the fly back driving frequency.

[@madrigo]

I believe in 11:10, when you say that sounds like 60Hz, that actually sounds like 120Hz. That's because what makes the sound is the arc ionizing this path of air in front of it, and every time it reforms the arc, a new wavefront is formed. I might be wrong, but I believe that's a 120Hz fundamental with a lot of harmonics in there. When you have an Amplitude Modulated signal forming an arc, then you will hear the modulated signal and not the carrier, so the effect is not present here.

[@970357ers]

9:03 Never thought I’d hear a sausage speak, but here it is.

[@GilaBert-sq4hj]

Sausage, pickle and corn dog. They all speak 😂

[@JeffGeerling]

@@GilaBert-sq4hjand more... we have a couple more tests to post on Geerling Engineering lol

[@FedeG86]

​@@JeffGeerling very funny way to roast food. 😂👍

[@wowalamoiz9489]

It's an ordinary sausage

[@justinbanks2380]

12:55 faster than our eyes can see... I think that is an idea for a video. Collaborate with someone with an insane high speed camera and see if you can record the plasma expanding and contracting to make the sound

[@Thing.Appreciator]

@slowmoguys

[@JeffGeerling]

@@Thing.Appreciatorthat's a collab I could get behind

[@SpydersByte]

@@Thing.Appreciator ^

[@mannys4539]

real talk... I can't see anyone with a phantom or equivalent camera trying to film this... the chance of breaking $100,000 camera is too high... sure would be cool tho

[@justinbanks2380]

​@@mannys4539​ I'm sure there is someone. Alan Pan drove a car through a Tesla coil and arc attack films electricity in high speed. I'm sure if they put behind thick insulating plexiglass and the rest a faraday cage. IDK, just an idea

[@kennethseymour5306]

Yeah, time to make a comment, I need moar. I came upon your channel recently, and I have really been enjoying it. Dangit, like I need another field of curiosity. Also, extra props for the choice of groundnews as a sponsor, my curiosity is piqued, and I am definitely gonna give it a test. It would be wonderful if, in this polarized society that is fed bias, more people could find less-biased information. Too late for Christmas...but no wrong time for a gift.

[@isaacking1524]

One correction at 3:24: energy delivery does not drop off exponentially with distance. Any time you have what amounts to an expanding sphere of waves (or anything else), the dropoff in intensity at the surface will be proportional to the surface area, which grows as the square of the radius.

[@Brother_In_Christ]

I did it Morty, I received AM radio frequencies through a pickle, Morty. **Burbs**

[@1.4142]

That's actually a mud dauber wasp that is solitary and very docile and demur. They build mud homes for their children who they bring paralyzed spider to feed on.

[@graeme.davidson]

My rule is ignore it and it'll ignore you.

[@sakelaine2953]

@@graeme.davidson Good rule

[@jamesvandamme7786]

Except they fill up every 1/4" jack hole with mud.

[@linuxguy1199]

Mud daubers have literally caused hundreds of deaths. Lookup Birgenair Flight ALW 301.

[@maccurtis730]

Radio Tower: "I will greatly increase your pain." Hotdog: "I felt that!"

[@0therun1t21]

The corndog sounded great! Art Bell made a giant loop antenna in Pahrump that pulled enough power out of the air to freak him out, but he never went into detail about it and that's why I'm here trying to learn. Thank you!

[@michaelrowley8679]

Electrical Engineer here, Jay your channel is great! I would love to see an improved RF power receiver, the one you built in this video is a good starting point.

[@anthonymonroe852]

6:30 that's a mud-dauber I believe. Generally non aggressive, unless threatened. They are in the wasp family but are only a mild annoyance as they build mud structure on walls. Their stings are also much less painful as they don't kill their prey so much as paralyze it to eat later. You can usually tell by their abdomen that thin part at the waist. Where wasps have the same narrow connection it is more like an hourglass instead of a thin straw between.

[@DeusExWolksvagen]

A wasp hands typed this post.

[@MrBrandoncal]

Yes! Go bigger!

[@naeemulhoque1777]

2:59 is this what Nikola Tesla wanted?

[@bonethghar]

Exactly. Why is he not dropping N. Tesla's name?

[@jemlittle1787]

This channel blows minds in the best way possible

[@bradhafichuk]

I feel like Integza would appreciate a sacrificial tomatoe to the tower on your next visit!

[@mnikpro]

5:10 "don't touch any of those stuff because you'll die." 😂

[@Happ1ness]

He said calmly

[@Powertampa]

That's the sound of @franzolielectronics making music with plasma. You should talk to him if you wanna show off the musical capability of plasma!

[@bekindandrewind1422]

So, are we doing receiving antennas for radiated power "wrong" ? I mean, if you had something the size of a solar panel, wouldn't the amount of radiated energy hitting it's face would be pretty high?

[@vixeondaniels8886]

PLEASE make the larger generator, Mr. TESLA! ❤

[@FelanLP]

"Transmitting electrical power via towers and antennas through air" wasn't there something about a lost invention from Nicola Tesla, which could be describet the same? Yet we say that it's ether unclear what his implementation would have looked like or that it wouldn't be a wise tech to use, since we know which way energy uses. I mean, we know lightnings and stuff, so... Yeah, that's just something this reminded me of.

[@mfbfreak]

His idea is mostly identical to this. But the big difference is that his 'tesla coil' was a big spark gap transmitter, and a nasty one at that. Those things have reasonable average power levels of let's say 50 to 100kW, but the impulse power is properly enormous - tens or hundreds of megawatts. That means it's pretty easy to get sparky things and lighting discharge tubes everywhere. But not to get any sort of usable power out of it. It would also bulldoze any radio reception in a wide range. Tesla's invention adheres to the inverse square law of field strenght too. So while you can inefficiently transfer real usable power over a couple meters, it's near impossible to do it over hundreds of meters.

[@FelanLP]

@@mfbfreak no, I meant this big mushroom structure made out of metal beams where we don't really know what exactly his intentions were. If I'm not mistaken it's still unclear what telsa realy wanted to achieve. But I wouldn't be surprised it this tech portraied in the video is the unintentional perfection of Teslas initial idea, which made him thinking about these towers in the first place.

[@petergerdes1094]

@@FelanLPI thought it was relatively clear what he wanted to achieve was publicity and he was delibrately playing up an image knowing it wasn't completely practical. For instance, if you get into the details his account of his earthquake generator is clearly largely fictionalized and I assume there is an element of exageragtion here too.

[@Matthew.Morycinski]

@@FelanLP He was probably trying to achieve maximum radiation from minimum size structure. If you read "Antenna Engineering Handbook" chapter on electrically small antennas, they do mention that the limiting case of a short monopole is a dome with a comparably sized resonant coil hidden under it. But even that only works within limitations of physical laws and available materials. You can't pump a ton of water per second out of a milimeter sized hole, and you can't radiate a megawatt out of a coin.

[@jimmyrustler8983]

At 8:20, Joe's 100% right. I used to freeclimb a lot of stuff, cathedral spires, bridges, and other assorted tall stuff. No towers though. They're rather zappy. Not that falling from great height isn't any less dangerous 😅

[@raphaelfranzen9623]

One might argue with that last part. You can't be sure which parts of a tower are energized, but you can learn how to prevent falling while climbing.

[@jimmyrustler8983]

@@raphaelfranzen9623 Funnily enough, only ever had one close call in regards to falling, never had any issues after that. Liquid chalk helps a lot too 🤙

[@jamesvandamme7786]

@@raphaelfranzen9623 I knew exactly what was energized on my radar towers.

[@the_samsung_simp]

4:10 is that a INEOS Grenadier?

[@danf.712]

It would be interesting to see how the World War 2 Enigma Machines sent and received information, in addition to the power needed to do it especially the Axis Navy version of it.

[@RBRM3]

It's cool being on a tower and hearing people talk on a phone or a CB etc.

[@lifeinmotion3339]

Could you build a drone that could power itself and have altitude hold .? That would be cool. You could have infinite flight times. Until it burns the motors out🤔. Or have an override to control and land.

[@krabbend8]

or a car

[@mfbfreak]

That would be very hard. In theory, if you'd have a loop antenna that weighs next to nothing, you could hover within one or two meters of a large transmitter tower, but that's about it.

[@Matthew.Morycinski]

There were ideas of powering cars on a highway with loops of wire under the roadway. It would of course be terribly, ridiculously inefficient to do it from any kind of distance.

[@BenjaminAster]

1:11 HECK YEAH SALZBURG LET'S GOOOO

[@Rork333]

Sorry but courts have already ruled this is not theft. Proper utilization of physics is another inherent right held by any capable human

[@GiguereSylvain]

Plasma speaker: it seems that phenomenon was identified as soon as.. 1898.. and plasma tweeters were commercially produced in the 50's Ionophone, Fane etc. Quite fascinating. Thanks for bringing up these subjects. 👍

[@DanielEngsvang]

Extremely fascinating!. Great initiative!. Well done 😄🥰

[@nathan-shearer]

The wood rod was held rather close to the body at 8:08. An arc could potentially jump from the wood rod to the body, bypassing the gloves. It looks like the gloves are designed to have deep arm holes to prevent arcs from routing around the glove. Please be careful because high voltage arcs will go *around* your insulator to bite you.

[@GigsTaggart]

Keep in mind it's 800 volts. It can't jump more than a few mm. They were very safe.

[@a64738]

Wood stick... Normally you would use a glass fiber rod that is a good insulator.

[@AnonymousAnarchist2]

Well I dont have my engineering handbook uh, handy making it rather useless rn, I do know that wood is an excellent insulator for electricity. Do you know why blank circut boards are called breadboards? Because the first ones where just that, used bread cutting boards, and quite a lot of high powered equipment is still in operation using just wood to insulate. The problem with wood comes primarily from it lighting on fire, and secondarly from it needing an ample safty factor as humidity changes its insulating value but I would say a 2 meter stick is more then ample for a saftey factor.

[@nathan-shearer]

@@AnonymousAnarchist2 For sure, they took more than enough safety precautions in this video. I just wanted to point out that subtle detail for those who are still learning and have not yet been surprised by a rogue arc taking the long route around insulators.

[@AnonymousAnarchist2]

@@nathan-shearer well that is a good point.

[@FriesOfTheDead]

Dude, you need to respect that NST a bit more, I would use a plastic rod when doing that (11:14). If that spark jumps over to your finger, you'll be dead before you hit the floor. That NST looks like 7kV or 9kV, probably 30 mA, and those things are usually center-tapped, making both ends hot.

[@Sabrinahuskydog]

I would imagine that the actual ceritfied professionals in the field would know a lot more about what is safe or isn't safe than you do, random person on the internet who isn't a certified RF engineer.

[@FriesOfTheDead]

@@Sabrinahuskydog Lol, this is exactly why he should be more careful, because then people like you think what he's doing is safe and might try it at home. I'm talking about the bit where @PlasmaChannel has his fingers right next to a 7-9kV arc from a NST. The certified RF engineers are not at his house where this "experiment" is occurring. The fact that I can tell you how many volts and milliamps that transformer is just by looking at it should give you a clue that I know what I'm talking about, but sure, remain ignorant, die young.

[@FriesOfTheDead]

@@Sabrinahuskydog The part where @PlasmaChannel is "experimenting" with the NST he is at home, 2000 miles away from the certified RF engineers. He's holding a wire with 1mm of insulation, and there is about 9kV going through that wire, coming from a transformer that can deliver about 30 milliamps of current and his fingers are an inch away from the arc that he is pulling from that transformer. If that 1mm of insulation happens to fail or that arc jumps over to his finger he wont event have time to regret what he did. You don't need to be a certified anything to know how dangerous those transformers are, just do some basic research before playing with them. The fact that I know what the specifications of that transformer are, just by looking at it, should let you know that I at least know a little bit about the topic. Anyone with high voltage experience should be more aware of the dangers and I would recommend you do some research too. I've worked with high voltage transformers for a few decades, and I would never get my fingers that close to a conductor carrying that much voltage - insulation does fail sometimes, especially at those voltages, and if it does, you'll be lucky to get a second chance. Just play it safe and do what the certified guys did in the video - wear gloves and/or use a non-conductive rod to manipulate the conductors from a safe distance.

[@friesofwisdom4399]

@@Sabrinahuskydog I don't know why yt wont let me reply on my other account, but here is what I wanted to say: The part where @PlasmaChannel is "experimenting" with the NST he is at home, 2000 miles away from the certified RF engineers. He's holding a wire with 1mm of insulation, and there is about 9kV going through that wire, coming from a transformer that can deliver about 30 milliamps of current and his fingers are an inch away from the arc that he is pulling from that transformer. If that 1mm of insulation happens to fail or that arc jumps over to his finger he wont event have time to regret what he did. You don't need to be a certified anything to know how dangerous those transformers are, just do some basic research before playing with them. The fact that I know what the specifications of that transformer are, just by looking at it, should let you know that I at least know a little bit about the topic. Anyone with high voltage experience should be more aware of the dangers and I would recommend you do some research too. I've worked with high voltage transformers for a few decades, and I would never get my fingers that close to a conductor carrying that much voltage - insulation does fail sometimes, especially at those voltages, and if it does, you'll be lucky to get a second chance. Just play it safe and do what the certified guys did in the video - wear gloves and/or use a non-conductive rod to manipulate the conductors from a safe distance.

[@anthonyscott9936]

@@Sabrinahuskydognope, it’ll get him..

[@robbytheremin2443]

I was a broadcast engineer back in the 80s. Even a 1KW AM transmitter feels like a flat iron when you touch the tower. Don't ask me how I know...

[@mfbfreak]

For a couple of months i had a little dimple on the tip of my index finger from tuning a 144MHz magloop antenna and getting too close to the tuning cap. Smelled it first, felt it a split second later. RF burns go deep! And this was fed with just 10ish watts!

[@jamesvandamme7786]

@@mfbfreak Stepped up in voltage by the matching network!

[@robbytheremin2443]

​@@mfbfreak FYI, I'm W0TTM 😎

[@johnhutchinson5398]

So cool. I leaned against the ground guide wire from my tower when a guy keyed up on it and I have a r. F. Burn scare on me still today. I could taste the filling in my mouth the rest of the day.

[@johnkufeldt3564]

So glad Ifound your channel, I love to learn, enjoy a good sense of humour. Cheers from Canada.

[@nommy8599]

@PlasmaChannel You may've made a video supporting a fraudulent company, Helion. Could you please do a follow up or look into this (see comment in the video I'll link in reply below)? The CEO apparently setup equipment at another KZbinrs place and 'demonstrated fusion' which is obvious a hoax. If you ignore this you may be unwittingly supporting scamming. Not sure if that's important to you.

[@nommy8599]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pWeykHSYgappY5Ysi=anWyt00KRXIfA92h

[@aristeski]

This is what Nikola Tesla wanted to do, if I'm not mistaken! I love his concepts, and his promise. We need to rediscover his work and innovate in the field of energy generation and transmission. Energy is everywhere! Thank you for sharing this awesome video!

[@tallisman57]

My father was a Radio Engineer and revolutionized many aspects of broadcast radio... He was born around 1916... He did Harry Truman radio broadcast... Via a mobile studio before that time it had never been... He was also responsible for the modern telephone 📞 handset which provided radio quality transmission and reception before then you screamed into the telephone to be heard on the other side of town and need a child or woman to talk because their voice transmitter better because the frequency of their voices...

[@getcartercarpark.]

May I ask what detector diodes you used? Thinking along the lines of AM detectors it would suggest germanium and they would not withstand a “few” volts of emf, but use 1N4007 1kv 1 amp diodes and they would be quite happy, not very sensitive to RF, but at the RF levels you are looking at, thus will make no difference at all. Hence curious about what diodes you used? Tnx KW

[@ericberger394]

Certainly... I loved this one, and I would love to see another one, I think that what you put out here online is a little bit like this science show I used to wake up to watch up in Michigan every Saturday Morning

[@dalotos]

Yes build a massive one. Can't wait...

[@roypaulcarter4654]

Cool. Yes build another one. I’m not really into this stuff but you guys made it so interesting I just kept watching.

[@theguycalledturbo]

I have some times heard AM channels in my car that are from China and Bangladesh and I live in the centre of India, I'm always amazed at how far the AM frequencies travel and had pretty clear signal

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

@ 5:50 - Well, it's good to hear George Burns is still with us after all. Fascinating content.

[@ptrkmr]

Is think one of my favorite “free energy” headlines is when a kid built a VERY crude version of this, practically amounting to just a radio antenna but no one could comprehend that electric fields are everywhere

[@johndoughcrypto9688]

I like the Geerling's. Men of Faith and conviction

[@Chris-bn1bn]

Absolutely, anything that we can learn about should be fair game. You're video's are fenominal to anyone thirsty for knowledge.

[@mutum1]

I remember i used to have a friend I played video games with. For the longest time, very quietly in the background of his mic, was a radio broadcast. It took us so long to realize what it was, originally attributing it to like a TV in the background or something, but it turns out his headset was picking up AM radio waves. When he covered the wire in tin foil, it stopped.

[@WimmLichael]

That was super cool and informative! I would absolutely love a video about constructing a more robust and useful version of the generator, maybe something that can charge a mid size battery and be enough to say, run lighting for a camp or small home or something!

[@abeditani8293]

19:13 why do you use this type of the diode. its low-voltage forward leakage current. use something like ( HER508 )