[PPRAANet] Article about Nicola Tesla in Colorado Springs

[WV7T at aol.com]

Here is an article about Tesla's experiments in Colorado Springs.
 
 
By  the end of the 1890s, Tesla had come to the conclusion that it might be 
possible  to transmit electrical power without wires at high altitudes. 
There the air was  thinner, and therefore more conductive.  
A  friend and patent lawyer, Leonard E. Curtis, on being advised of Tesla's 
work,  offered to find land and provide power for the research from the El 
Paso Power  Company of Colorado Springs. The next supporter to come forward 
was Colonel John  Jacob Astor. With $30,000 from Astor, the inventor 
prepared at once to move to  Colorado and begin building a new experimental station 
near Pikes Peak. Joining  Tesla were several assistants who were not fully 
informed of the inventor's  plans.  
Arriving  at Colorado Springs in May 1899, Tesla went to inspect the 
acreage. It was some  miles out in the prairie. He told reporters that he intended 
to send a radio  signal from Pikes Peak to Paris, but furnished no details. 
In  the midst of Colorado's own incredible electrical displays, Tesla would 
sit  taking measurements. He soon found the earth to be "literally alive 
with  electrical vibrations." Tesla came to think that when lightning struck 
the  ground it set up powerful waves that moved from one side of the earth to 
the  other. If the earth was indeed a great conductor, Tesla hypothesized 
that he  could transmit unlimited amounts of power to any place on earth with 
virtually  no loss. But to test this theory, he would have to become the 
first man to  create electrical effects on the scale of lightning. 
The  laboratory that rose from the prairie floor was both wired and weird, 
a  contraption with a roof that rolled back to prevent it from catching 
fire, and a  wooden tower that soared up eighty feet. Above it was a 142-foot 
metal mast  supporting a large copper ball. Inside the strange wooden 
structure, technicians  began to assemble an enormous Tesla coil, specially designed 
to send powerful  electrical impulses into the earth.  
On  the evening of the experiment, each piece of equipment was first 
carefully  checked. Then Tesla alerted his mechanic, Czito, to open the switch for 
only one  second. The secondary coil began to sparkle and crack and an 
eerie blue corona  formed in the air around it. Satisfied with the result, Tesla 
ordered Czito to  close the switch until told to cease. Huge arcs of blue 
electricity snaked up  and down the center coil. Bolts of man-made lightning 
more than a hundred feet  in length shot out from the mast atop the station. 
Tesla's experiment burned out  the dynamo at the El Paso Electric Company 
and the entire city lost power. The  power station manager was livid, and 
insisted that Tesla pay for and repair the  damage.  
For  nine months Tesla conducted experiments at Colorado Springs. Though he 
kept a  day-to-day diary that was rich in detail, the results of his 
experiments are not  clear. One question has never been definitively answered: Did 
Tesla actually  transmit wireless power at Pikes Peak?  
There  are some reports that he did transmit a signal several miles 
powerful enough to  illuminate vacuum tubes planted in the ground. But this can be 
attributed to  conductive properties in the ground at Colorado Springs.  
Another  approach pursued by Tesla was to transmit extra-low-frequency 
signals through  the space between the surface of the earth and the ionosphere. 
Tesla calculated  that the resonant frequency of this area was approximately 
8-hertz. It was not  until the 1950s that this idea was taken seriously and 
researchers were  surprised to discover that the resonant frequency of this 
space was indeed in  the range of 8-hertz.  
A  third approach for wireless power transmission was to transmit 
electrical power  to the area 80-kilometers above the earth known as the ionosphere. 
Tesla  speculated that his region of the atmosphere would be highly 
conductive and  again his suspicions were correct. What he needed was the technical 
means to  send electrical power to such a high altitude.  
One  night in his laboratory, Tesla noticed a repeating signal being 
picked-up by his  transmitter. To his own amazement, he believed that he was 
receiving a signal  from outer space. Tesla was widely ridiculed when he 
announced this discovery,  but it is possible that he was the first man to detect 
radio waves from  space. 
A  great deal of mystery still surrounds Tesla's work at Colorado Springs. 
It is  not clear from his notes or his comments exactly how he intended to 
transmit  wireless power. But it is clear that he returned back to New York 
City fully  convinced that he could accomplish it.