More on Litz Wire

[Andre Kesteloot]

One of my own  --possibly blasé--  theories is that, this being a huge
Government contract, the fellow who wrote the original specs (against which the
various manufacturers had to bid) did not know all about Litz wire, and decided
that Litz was better than no-Litz (based on the sound bureaucratic approach that
"one never knows"), and that none of the bidders dared to question the
Government document's wisdom. And anyway, it increased the cost of the
contract...   ;-)
Also, the equipment, as I recall, was built circa 1937. hence the specs were
probably written i 1935 or '36.  The quote I recently posted from the RCA book
(and reprinted later in Langford-Smith) is dated 1941. Possibly they learned
something between 1935 and 1941...
73,
André N4ICK
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Robert E. Seastrom wrote:

>  For our purposes, probably right.  I'd be interested in the rationale
> behind the NSS use of litz -- I think this may be one of those cases
> wherein things are "different" when you're talking power levels of
> several hundred kilowatts.
>
> RSGB folks: The reference above is to radio station NSS, a recently
> decommissioned VLF station at the US Naval Academy about an hour's
> drive east of Washington, DC.  Several of us from AMRAD were part of a
> group of a couple hundred hams that went through the facility on a
> tour last weekend.  They had coils made of what looked like about 5000
> MCM (as big around as my wrist in any case) litz wire.  This was
> confirmed later when we talked with former employees about the spools
> of it found out back.
>
>                                         ---rob