
Repairing a vintage 40-kilovolt xenon lamp igniter - fanf2
http://www.righto.com/2020/03/repairing-vintage-40-kilovolt-xenon.html
======
tareqak
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22713244](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22713244)
, which is also currently on the front page.

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kens
Also see CuriousMarc's companion video, which shows how the spark gap works
with a coherer for primitive radio transmissions.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zG_DlxyugQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zG_DlxyugQ)

~~~
makomk
Spark-gap transmitters are of course technically illegal to operate pretty
much everywhere on the planet - by international treaty, even! - but in
practice I guess a short-range device like this isn't going to do much more
than maybe piss off the neighbours.

~~~
segfaultbuserr
> _but in practice I guess a short-range device like this isn 't going to do
> much more than maybe piss off the neighbours._

Don't forget the option to transmit into a dummy load (or to a radio receiver
and/or a spectrum analyzer with a 30 dB in-line attenuator). It allows one to
experiment with "illegal" radio setup. Although the transmitter itself still
has RF leakage and may still violate radio regulations, it's much less
disruptive (and technically you can make it perfectly legal if good shielding
is added).

