Micro-Gap Discharge Phenomena and Television Interference

Electromagnetic Interference from power lines is found to affect amplitude modulated communication services such as radio and television. Corona and microgap discharges have been identified as sources. While a large number of studies have been devoted to investigation of corona as the source of electromagnetic noise, only a very limited amount of basic information is available on mechanisms of the microgap discharge. The present paper is intended to partially fill this gap by presenting the results of an experimental program exploring characteristics of discharge processes that take place in two well defined point-to-plane geometries, one with a spherically shaped, the other with a conically shaped active electrode. A diameter of 1.588 mm was used for the rod, and gap spacings between 0.1 and 19 mm were investigated. Behaviour under both voltage polarities was studied.