Cover

The cover for this issue was taken from the Fall 1963 issue of SCIENCE EXPERIMENTER (courtesy of Bill Robertson).

The reason for it appearing in this issue will become apparent as you reach our dedication column. Incidentally, the article accompanying our cover actually came from HANDYMAN'S ELECTRICAL GUIDE, Volume 2, 1954.

I originally intended upon using the cover art from HANDYMAN'S GUIDE but found it was marred by advertising. But since I had but one copy of SE and many extras of HANDYMAN, I decided to sacrifice the latter issue. However, the projects appearing in both magazines are essentially identical. I hope this does not cause unnecessary confusion.

With Many Thanks

We owe a debt of gratitude and many thanks to Anthony DeAngelis whose efforts made this issue's dedication page possible. Anthony tracked down the family of the man being honored and made a pair of cassette tapes of the interview. That's the type of loyalty and dedication that makes TCBA a unique group.

And I owe my wife, Ruth, a dinner for spending time after work hours searching the internet for information on the hero of this issue. Certainly, the name of Harold P. Strand will be of no surprise to those who have built vacuum tube Tesla coils.

Countdown!

TCBA begins its FINAL YEAR of publication. There will be but three more issues forthcoming.

Back Issues

Those who do not own a complete file of TCBA News are urged to consider filling in the gaps of their collection. Once my library is depleted, there will be no more of the original printings available. A price list is available for the asking.

Dedication: Harold P. Strand

No one did more to popularize vacuum tube Tesla coils and other electrical phenomena than Harold P. Strand. His articles on various electrical/mechanical projects appeared in POPULAR SCIENCE, MECHANICS ILLUSTRATED, POPULAR MECHANICS, HANDYMAN'S ELECTRICAL GUIDE, SCIENCE FAIR PROJECTS, and SCIENCE & MECHANICS (to which he served as Science Editor).

Besides Tesla coils, Strand's articles featured Van de Graaff generators, repulsion coils, test equipment, current conversion, transformer design, photographic techniques, and so on. Strand's very first article dealt with radio cabinets and appeared in the May 1925 issue of WIRELESS AGE. His essays of the 1950s and forward were very helpful to science and physics teachers such as myself who were in need of project construction information.

Because the majority of articles focused on projects of an electrical nature, readers assumed that he was an electrical engineer. Actually, Strand's education major was in photography. Although electricity was of secondary interest, it soon became the focus of his work. Strand established a career as an inventor, author, and solar electric pioneer. He introduced the transistorized megaphone to National Radio, the predecessor of Radio Shack (which later sold the device commercially).

Although Harold Strand was born in Canada, he settled in Malden, MA in 1901. He served with the Signal Corps during World War 1. Strand attended MIT and the Wentworth Inst. of Technology. He designed apparatus for industry, medicine, and science. He once sold a model Van de Graaff to its inventor, Robert Van de Graaff.

Among his best known projects is the vacuum tube Tesla coil. One of his original models stood on display at the Boston Museum of Science for many years. It was eventually taken out of service. But thanks to Anthony DeAngelis, the unit has been fully restored.

Harold Strand passed away in 1984 at the age of 88. We experimenters owe him a debt of gratitude for his many valuable contributions on our behalf.