OWH I hope I can clear this up for you. I can list a device that was powered solely by radio waves back in the 1920’s: it’s called a crystal radio. You could conceivably use it to charge an AAA battery, but my guess is you’d be long dead before it fully charged.
This technology which you stated has “pwned” Cecil is simply a more refined version of the crystal radio. This type of ancient radio captures a small amount of electromagnetic energy in the RF spectrum within a narrow set of frequencies (think of flashlight that has a cover of red cellophane and only emits a pure red light like a Helium-Neon laser). The crystal radio’s captured power is going to range in the microwatts to nanowatt range, and additional losses within the radio will result in another 100 fold loss of amplitude before it hits the ear drum—fortunately, for you, your ears are exquisitely designed to capture low power audio (down to the trillionths of a Watt).
What the article stated was the transmitter-receiver system is more efficient in capturing a lot more power at a short-range distance. In other words, remove the red cellophane from the flashlight, and brighter white light will now show. That’s all the Powercast® receiver really is, it can see many more colors in the RF spectrum then a crystal radio would see and by extension gathers a lot more energy which is significant enough to be useful.
There’s nothing new here, theoretically, other than someone figured it could be made practical and cost effective. Cecil pointed out that the broadcasting power to free space (i. e., the great outdoors) isn’t practical. And that’s still the case. You didn’t read the article closely enough—it directly states that energy is being captured is “bouncing off the walls.” What does that mean? Think of blowing a fire cracker off in the men’s room, rather than outside in an open area. Which one is going to leave your ears ringing more? Again, think of reading inside of a white room with a single light bulb as opposed to reading out at night with a single light bulb. You’re going to need a brighter light bulb, or hold your book closer to the light to get the same brightness on the page outside in that mean, dark, cruel world.
In other words, the walls are serving as reflectors of the Powercast® transmitter, and helping reflect the energy from transmitter around the room to the receiver. Not unlike a microwave oven, but without the splatter. OWH, that’s what you’re calling “broadcasting power.” That’s not what Cecil intended, nor was that what Tesla wanted to do. Cecil and Tesla spoke of sending it out to free space, not keeping it some confined area (which is what Powercast® takes advantage of), and that the economics of using the technology of broadcasting power to free space back then, as now, are as impractical as launching the Saturn V to the moon on charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid.
Let me expand this with that earlier analogy: if you place a light bulb out in field at night in an open field, the amount of light reaching your eyes is going to be less then inside of a white room. That’s where your understanding breaks down OWH, you keep thinking that that the right kind of light bulb is going to fix the problem. It isn’t the light bulb–doesn’t matter if it’s a compact fluorescent bulb, an LED bulb, Castle-Bravo, or a hyper-nova. It’s the path the energy takes and the losses it incurred that determine whether the received energy is useful or not. In the big outdoors, that means most of it speeds off to sky never to be see again. And who wants to invest in a power source that even my home generator can beat literally a million times over for cost even with record gas prices?
It seems to me, OWH, IMHO your knowledge and understanding of electromagnetic fields seems to be comparable to Ben Stein’s understanding on evolution. You seem to think that because you’ve read something and presume to be smart enough to understand it, you’ve discovered some obvious holes. Good luck, cause I’m sure your still young and very smart. Probably a lot smarter then me. I have no problem admitting that right now, but I did about thirty years ago.
In thirty years, you’ll understand why.
