Hello Jim Berger,

Thanks so much for that highly educational post!
You really seem to be on top of this technical side so
I wanted to run yet another idea by you which I've been
thinking about for a long time:

If you were to feed a frequency modulated signal into
the plasma tube you would have an incredible amount
of control (assuming digital Frequency Modulation) of
bandwidth of the generated sidebands (how many sidebands
or frequency partials are generated) as well as the precise
location of those sidebands.

Specifically, using only 2 digital sine wave oscillators,
let's call them sine wave generator 1 (SWG1) and Sine
wave generator 2 (SWG2), we use SWG1 to modulate the
frequency of SWG2. In this case, as in FM radio and
FM electronic sound/music synthesis, SWG1 is called the
Modulator and SWG2 is called the carrier. Now in this case
I'm not talking about the RF carrier, this is prior to that.

Using these two sine wave generators, or computer music
composers would call them "unit generators" after John Chowning
who held the patent on FM for many years: the Modulator and
the Carrier, we can rather precisely control how many
sidebands or frequency partials we want by controlling
the FM "index". index is defined as the ratio of Delta F/FM.
Delta F is the change or difference in frequency above and below
the carrier. As the amount of change in the Carrier is increased,
with the modulator (Fm) staying stable, you are increasing the
"modulation index" which wil result in many more "sidebands"
springing up left and right of the carrier, just like in Amplitude
modulation. There are some differences between Amplitude Modulation
(AM) and Frequency Modulation (FM), one of the primary differences
being that Bessell functions control the amplitude of the sidebands
in FM but not in AM apparently (I am currently studying just what
controls the amplitude of the sidebands in AM, but it does not appear so far to be mathematical Bessel functions).

So, by controlling the FM modulation index, we can have more or fewer
overall frequencies in our sound. These frequencies would more properly be called "partials" as we do not know for sure if they are true harmonics (integer multiples of the fundamental) because we must know the mathematical relationship between the the carrer frequency (Fc) and the modulator frequency (Fm) in order to determine if the "sidebands" or partials are harmonically related.

When Fm and Fc are related to one another in exact integers, you will get a harmonic series, but depending on WHICH integer you have in this relationship, you will not necessarily get all harmonics. When the Fm/Fc ratio is 1, you get all harmonics, when it is 2 you get only ODD harmonics ( see now why I thought people might find this interesting, because folks are working with triangle and square waves which produce only odd harmonics. This effect is duplicated in FM with a Fm/Fc ratio of exactly 2.) A ratio of 3 leaves out every 3rd harmonic. The rule is that an integer relationship of n leaves out every nth harmonic from the harmonic series. You would certainly want to be aware of this if you are trying to be accurate in knowing what freuquences you are sending into the RF carrier.

So, by controlling the Fm/Fc ratio, we can control If harmonic partials are generated and by controlling the FM Index (Delta f/Fm) we can control the overall bandwidth off the singal being sent into the RF carrier. That's a lot of control with only 2 digital sine wave oscillators. I tried to convince one manufacturer of a signal generator to enact this algorithm in their machine but they apparently were not interested or did not understand why I asked about it.

Important to note also is that if the ratio of Fm/Fc is a non-integer,you get an inharmonic spectrum (I believe this is also the case in AM which I think may be very important!). Meaning, you get partials, or frequencies which are not in integer relationships to one another. This would also be important to be aware of. I don't really know if a harmonic spectrum or an inharmonic spectrum being sent to the RF carrier has really been studied in a plasma tube device, but it would be most interesting to study. Then of course lately I've been reading that the plasma tube itself is a nonlinear device so you get something else out altogether apparently than you put in, or at least something different. Then there seems to be some controversy over just what kind of EM wave is coming out of the plasma tube. A recent article on AmericanAntiGravity.com implies that Rife used tuned microwaves to achieve his biological effects, but I've read some reports that seem to suggest that the device puts out scalar waves (thought to be non-existent apparently by many in Physics) but there were reports somewhere on the waves penetrating a Faraday cage, which is highly interesting! Of course Tesla's attempts to transmit wireless power come to mind if this is actually happening (what an exciting prospect!).
I'm told they also are likely to be classified as "soliton" waves, which confuses me a bit since the only solitons I have been able to read about exist only inside fiber optic cables.

So with "simple FM" we have 2 unit generators with lots of control: bandwidth, harmonic or inharmonic spectrum. However, if you now add a third oscillator, you can have "complex FM" (either parallel complex FM or cascade complex FM) which in either case, allows you to grow sidebands on your sidebands. I believe this is what is happening in some of the overmodulation in the amplitude modulated signals now being used by some plasma devices... you are getting sidebands on your sidebands....generating a huge bandwidth with lots of frequencies, at least so far that's my understanding, but I need to do more research on that to be more sure. However, using complex FM, we would be able to generate almost an unlimited number of sidebands of such incredible complexity and with an almost unlimited bandwidth (simply increase the modulation index of one or both modulators) that we could have essentially a white noise generrator.... so by using FM synthesis with 3 oscilators, we would have the capability of tremedous control. The only thing you cannot directly control is the actual amplitude of those sidebands, as they are controlled by Bessel functions, but you could study the Bessel functions and develop a strategy for learning to work with them to create predictable sideband amplitudes.