[Lowfer] Free Energy

[Ed Phillips]

Bill Farmer wrote:
> 
> That's no doubt the April "Fools" edition ...
> 
> Bill

	Not necessarily.  A number of guys have played with stuff like that and
Lee Heflinger, W6WZV, currently has a micro-power motor of his own
design powered by a local FM station.  The motor is connected to the
output of a diode detector connected to a (folded?) dipole.  Just a
stunt, of course, but isn't that what most of our hobbies are?

	The idea is by no means new, and similar stories have been reported for
a very long time.  I remember an article on the subject in Electronics
magazine, "way back when".  I have a 1430 kHz, 10 kW BC station about a
mile from here, and can get 30 volts DC out of the detector on a crystal
set.  Will run a speaker plenty well enough to hear all around a room,
but by no means boom box levels.  I have a couple of QRP rigs which I
can hook to my 50' vertical through a rather crummy antenna tuner.  When
I first tried to load one up I found I was getting almost 250 ma of
antenna current when the tuner was adjusted for max current.  Big
surprise when I discovered the current was the same key up, and thought
the final must be oscillating.  Current was there when I pulled the
power, and I realized I was actually tuning the tuner at 1430 kHz and
dumping all of the received current through the ammeter.  Haven't tried
to use the power for anything, and have lots of QRM from intermod in
just about everything around here, most particularly from oxidized
contacts of various antenna relays.  When it gets to bad I recycle them
a few time and it cleans up until the next time.

Ed