Hello from Utah

[Alan Rockwood]

Hi,

I just registered here. My grandmother was a second cousin to Philo T. Farnsworth. I am old enough to have met Philo, but unfortunately, I never did meet him. However, I did meet his widow once at a family party, back in the 1970s.

As you know, part of Philo's work on the fusor was performed at Brigham Young University. The University still possessed remnants of one of Philo's fusor devices until recently. They put the parts up for Auction in October, 2020, and I won the bid on the auction. I paid for the parts in early November and took possession a soon afterward. So now I have part of one of Farnsworth's fusion devices at my home.

The parts I have are a large power supply and what is is said to be a large transformer mounted inside of an oil-filled barrel. Unfortunately, the vacuum system/fusion cell is not included.

I am not sure what I will do with it in the long term, i.e. keep it as a family heirloom of find a different home more permanent home for it.

Here's a little about me. I am a PhD chemist, originally specializing in physical chemistry. I spent part of my career in research on the fundamentals of mass spectrometry and in developing mass spectrometry instrumentation. I have never worked with fusors. However, there is quite a bit of overlap between the technology of mass spectrometry and the technology of fusors. The last part of my career was spent in the field of clinical chemistry. These days I am a retired Professor Emeritus of Pathology, though I still keep a few small irons in the fire, professionally speaking.

Some of you know Dan Knapp. Dan and I know each other on a professional level.

Alan

P.S. I realize that the fusor does a form of hot fusion. However, I do have a very indirect connection to cold fusion in the sense that I became personally acquainted with Pons and Fleischmann during my time as a post doctoral research associate at the University of Utah. This was before I knew of their attempts to do cold fusion.

[Richard Hull]

Welcome Alan! You may just have one of their two "Universal Voltronics" power supplies or you may have one of the supplies hand built by Gene Meeks in the early 60's to start the original ITT-farnsowrth fusion effort. You might get a handle on some of this in my fast history in Hull's attic in the Farnsworth history forum.

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=13269

Richard Hull