[Lowfer] Free Energy/QST October 1999

[Ed Phillips]

John Andrews wrote:
> 
> Ken,
> 
> > Mitchell Lee lived one mile from KKSJ and recovered energy
> > from the AM broadcast signal.
> > The article is not April Fool's but October 1999 pages 66 and 67
> > and I have the QST  article in front of me.  The circuit details are
> > simple--  a tuning circuit for KKSJ,  a diode, two transistors and
> > this output is across a large capacitor.  The battery receives a charge
> > of 200 milliamps or about 2.5 W of delivered power, 24 hours per day.
> 
> But do realize that the diode is switching on and off at the carrier
> frequency of the radio station. My initial message was simply that I
> wondered that since that switching action would produce harmonics, whether
> they could be re-radiated. The tuning circuit would tend to reduce that, in
> any case. The device would certainly need to be evaluated for compliance
> with FCC Part 15. Perhaps that's why you've never seen a commercial version
> of it.
> 
> And in reading QST for 40 years, I have found an occasional instance where a
> reader-submitted concept did not pass muster. They fairly frequently publish
> corrections to their "Hints & Kinks" submissions. Of course, the Larson E.
> Rapp stories are another matter! <g>
> 
> John Andrews

	This thing will certainly work, and it will certainly produce enough
radiated harmonic and intermod power to be a source of noticeable
interference.  Just remembered that when I was going to the University
of Illinois back in '44-'45 there was strong local BC interference due
to intermod between the signals from the two local BC stations. 
Allegedly it was fixed later by eliminating the source, which was rusty
junctions on a tower someplace.  Hear lots of that stuff around here,
but suspect that a lot of it is generated in my own gear.

Ed