Nikola Tesla - The real father of Radio
By: Steve Adams.
This was originally presented to the Vange Amateur Radio Society on the 15th June 2006.
Tesla coils were first developed by Nicola Tesla - A Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, and scientist. He was born on July 9/10, 1856 in Croatia and died on January 7, 1943 in New York City.
Tesla was the electrical engineer who invented the AC (alternating current) induction motor, which made the universal transmission and distribution of electricity possible.
He began his studies in physics and mathematics at Graz Polytechnic, and then took philosophy at the University of Prague. He worked as an electrical engineer in Budapest, Hungary, and subsequently in France and Germany. In1888 his discovery that a magnetic field could be made to rotate if two coils at right angles are supplied with AC current 90o out of phase made possible the invention of the AC induction motor. The major advantage of this motor being its brushless operation, which many at the time believed impossible.
Tesla moved to the United States in 1884, where he worked for Thomas Edison who quickly became a rival. Edison being an advocate of the inferior DC power transmission system. During this time, Tesla was commissioned with the design of the AC generators installed at Niagara Falls. George Westinghouse purchased the patents to his induction motor, and made it the basis of the Westinghouse power system which still underlies the modern electrical power industry today.
He also did notable research on high-voltage electricity and wireless communication; at one point creating an earthquake which shook the ground for several miles around his New York laboratory. He also devised a system which anticipated world-wide wireless communications, fax machines, radar, radio-guided missiles and aircraft .