Archived -HEAS 2007

[Richard Hull]

About 41 people jammed into my lab on Friday evening and Saturday in good weather, albeit humid and warm, but not hot.

A large contingent, (9), from the fusor forums showed up eager to talk and see fusion.

Q brought along his giant pet taranatula which he carried about for extended periods in his bare hand! It seemed quite content to reside there, in his open palm as he walked about and not crawl up his arm or onto other bystanders.

The flea market was fantastic. Lots of goodies were exchanged with money as the intermediary.

Steve Roys sold all of his green 20mw hand held laser pens in short order. It seems laser beams bloomed and danced about in the night air a lot.

Bill Kolb sold out his Radiation book offerings also in short order.

Talks, presentations..........................

Four, after dinner, evening talks and presentations were given. We used my ceiling mounted data projector for all computer, DVD and video presentations projected on my white board so all assembled could easily see.

Kevin Dunn showed us the "History of Acids", a show that was just on the Discovery channel in which he participated.

Bill Kolb gave a fabulous power point presentation on the history and mysteries related to Trinitite.

T.R. Leary gave a short demo on cleaving fluorite crystals

Carl Willis gave a computer based talk on the reduction of U ore to the oxides and answered a lot of questions regarding his effort.

Demos....................

Bill Connery brought a Marx Generator that was super loud and potent using 12 microwave oven condensers....60KV and gunshot like report.

Sue Gaeta brought a couple of her Tesla Coils and Tom Vales had lots of cool older pieces of electronics to show. I fired my ring tossing repulsion coil and gave a demo of the miesner effect with a liguid nitrogen cooled super conductor.

The usual groups of 3-5 individuals clustered throughout the event. Some telling jokes and just visitng, others discussing theory, chemistry, particle physics and even internet dating snafus. At final count, 2 gallons of ice tea were consumed along with 145 sodas, 6 giant bags of chipos, fritos, and pretzels and 60 chocolate donuts.

As the sales are in my side yard, and I live on a major road, we had 30 or more yard sale lookers stop and all turned around quickly as they didn't recognize a single thing that was for sale.

The event ended around 12:30 AM on Sunday as the last 5 folks departed for their motel rooms and much needed sleep.

I was honored to have so many come from so far and enjoy the company of like minded folks enriching themselves and imparting their own knowledge and ideas to others.

I may organize, ramrod and host this event, but it is all of those showing up that make it a success. Thanks!

Below in subsequent postings will be all the images in this archived thread. If you attended and have images, post them as replies here please.

Richard Hull

[Richard Hull]

The loot I bought and traded for is shown here.

Image 1 shows a load of vacuum stuff, (fittings, copper gaskets, adapters, etc), some warbird instruments, a Baby Ben, some Beryllium sheeting, instruments and one of the many U rocks I bought. Not seen, are some of the books and a green laser I also purchased.

Image 2 shows a classic 1930's Ingersoll Radiolite pocket watch mechanism. 200k CPM on 2" pancake probe. (includes alpha)

[bwsparxz]

Let me be the first to thank you Richard on another great HEAS. the weather was just about perfect this year. I enjoyed everyones talks and all the conversion before and after. I hated when it all broke up after midnight. The day really flew by. As for my loot - a hot radium aircraft controller, 100 g D20, several sheets of beryllium foil, a piece of Frank's Mauch Chunk ore, 4 mercury rectifier tubes, a copy of Bill Kolb's "Living with Radiation" (how I got along with this book I don't know!) and (4) 20KV Wallis multiplier disks ( now bringing my existing Wallis stack to 180KV) . Anyone have (1) more positive 20KV wallis disks to sell? I'm ready for 2008 already. Can't wait to see the pics. Thanks for everything you do to put this on every year.

[MSimon]

Thanks for the Ingersol history bit.

I live in Rockford, Illinois, the home of Ingersol and am always interested in bits of their history. I have visited their campus.

If any of you ever comes this way give me a shout out.

[Richard Hull]

Three images here, all are large

First the group shot.

left to right, standing....
Brian Willard, Dave Rosignoli, Eric Stroud, Raymond Jimenez, Jon Rosenstiel, Carl Willis...I am seated....Frank Sanns was there but was temporarily gone to his motel. Q was also not in this shot, but was there. We should have done another picture, but stuff moves so fast and it just didn't get done.

Next a shot of me getting ready for a third run at Fusor IV with Carl slouching against the partion, grinning broadly.

Finally, early in the final run, in what most agreed might have been a record breaker, I beam with satisfaction that others exist now who have personally seen this thing under full steam and doing very well. We lightly activated silver. 63 bubbles in 12 minutes was the best run. I had moved my He3 detector back from the fusor to REDUCE the count rate. The best count I logged was 110, 334 counts in ten minutes or 11,033 cpm.

Note: based on the above data I have reduced the data to show that I was producing ~280,000 n/sec when I was operating at 41kv @ 6ma (246 watts). As long as I never move the He3 counter and keep it filled to my water line marked in it, this means for each count on the He3, ~1500 neutrons have been isotropically emitted from fusor IV.

My new LED vacuum pressure indicator head may be glimpsed in a small swingout box under the shelf that the fusor is mounted on. I had built and installed this only days prior to the gathering.

Richard Hull

[Richard Hull]

Eric Stroud lucked onto a lecture bottle of He3 somehow and may be the only amateur in these forums working on a D-He3 fusor system. (The gas runs about $2600.00 for a small lecture cylinder)

Below is an image of his fusor to be run and tested soon. It is very well done. Interestingly, it is a sealed spherical unit with no equatorial gaskets or flanges.

Richard Hull

[David Rosignoli]

Richard,

Let me echo Brian's comments: Great conference/gathering! The weather was certainly a far cry better than last year (it had been a cold, wet rain instead of the warm Richmond sun that we had). Good stuff purchased: vacuum gauges, fusor grid (thanks Eric), several books, high voltage components, an optical beam splitter assembly (amazing what $5 can get you), and a few other goodies.

The talks were all very good (especially all the side conversations). You can tell Carl and Bill really put a lot of time and effort into their work. It certainly shows. Great stuff. Seeing Kevin Dunn's talk, it makes me want to see the completed Modern Marvels episode on Acids to see how it really turned out.

My thanks for hosting the event. I'm sure it takes a lot of work to pull it off, but you seemed to pull it off without a hitch. Great job! I too am looking forward to 2008.

Dave

[Jon Rosenstiel]

Richard,

Yeah, what those guys said goes for me too. I had a great time, met some great people, and enjoyed some stimulating conversation. Hope to make it again next year.

Again, Richard, I would like to thank you and Kit for hosting yet another superb event.

Jon Rosenstiel

[Carl Willis]

I'll add my thank-you to the pile also. Richard, you do a magnificent service to this community by hosting HEAS. Nothing beats face-to-face contact with the other fusioneers.

I went home with some new and interesting items as usual, and fortunately my baggage was quite a bit lighter since I sold off and traded my heavy load of radioactive minerals.

I think Richard's fusor set a performance record while we were there...he'll probably post a separate condensate of his numbers later on.

Last but not least, the weather was good to us this year!

See you in '08...

-Carl

[ericstroud]

Richard - Thank you again for hosting this wonderful event. Nice talking with everyone, and great finds were abundant. Here are a few additional pics:

Richard during a run-Voltage climbing!; End of a run: Lots of bubbles!; A view of the swapmeet; Brian and his monstrous thyratron; Frank S. and his famous detector; Pole pig for sale!

Kind regards, Eric

[Todd Massure]

Looks like everyone had a great time. Too bad I coudn't make it this time. Thanks Richard for doing HEAS every year, and I hope to make it next year.

Todd Massure

[Richard Hull]

I really appreciate all the kudos from you folks. It is nice comments like these that give me the impetus to continue the now nearly 20 year old traditional gathering.

Thanks to Eric for posting something other than fusor images! As you can see the flea market images the crowds just about killed my lawn. Fortunately, I am not a lawn freak. With 36 days since the last rain, it wasn't doing well anyway.

Anyone else shoot any other pix?

Richard Hull

[Q]

thank you again, richard! another great event. i'm glad you can manage the invasion of so many of us every year.

Q

[Richard Hull]

Interestingly the most severely taxed facility at my home is bathroom plumbing. There is a lot of spent fuel exhausted and radiators drained into the toilet there and it suffers about 500 flushes over the 3 day event.

Sunday is repair and recovery day when all the coolers are drained and cleaned, tables and chairs refolded and stored. Debris such as cans, bottles and papers are picked up from the lawn and lab. All my cars are moved back into the side yard from a friends house via relay driving. I put 15 large green trash bags into my pickup to take to the dump. (I had to fend off the yellow jackets from the trash cans. They discovered and loved the soda can residue.)

I finally crashed late Sunday afternoon about 4PM before supper and got about 2 hours shut eye following the the day's cleanup and reorganization of the house and lab.

It is a lot to do, but worth it and I hope to do it again next year for the 19th
time.

Richard Hull