Editing Spark-gap transmitter (section)

===Legacy===
One legacy of spark-gap transmitters is that [[radio operator]]s were regularly nicknamed "Sparky" long after the devices ceased to be used. Even today, the German verb ''funken'', literally, "to spark", also means "to send a radio message".

The spark gap oscillator was also used in nonradio applications, continuing long after it became obsolete in radio. In the form of the [[Tesla coil]] and [[Oudin coil]] it was used until the 1940s in the medical field of [[diathermy]] for deep body heating.<ref name="Strong">{{cite book
| last1= Strong
| first1= Frederick Finch
| title= High Frequency Currents
| publisher= Rebman Co.
| date= 1908
| location= New York
| url= https://archive.org/details/highfrequencycu00strogoog
| page= [https://archive.org/details/highfrequencycu00strogoog/page/n65 41]
}}</ref><ref name="Kovács">{{cite book
| last1= Kovács
| first1= Richard
| title= Electrotherapy and Light Therapy
| edition= 5th
| publisher= Lea and Febiger
| date= 1945
| location= Philadelphia
| pages= 187–188, 197–200
| url= https://archive.org/stream/electrotherapyli00kovrich#page/186/mode/2up
}}</ref> High oscillating voltages of hundreds of thousands of volts at frequencies of 0.1 - 1&nbsp;MHz from a Tesla coil were applied directly to the patient's body. The treatment was not painful, because currents in the radio frequency range do not cause the physiological reaction of [[electric shock]]. In 1926 [[William T. Bovie]] discovered that RF currents applied to a scalpel could cut and cauterize tissue in medical operations, and spark oscillators were used as [[electrosurgery]] generators or "Bovies" as late as the 1980s.<ref name="Carr">{{cite journal
| last1= Carr
| first1= Joseph J.
| title= Early radio transmitters
| journal= Popular Electronics
| volume= 7
| issue= 5
| pages= 43–46
| date= May 1990
| url= https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Poptronics/90s/90/PE-1990-03.pdf
| access-date= 21 March 2018}}</ref>

In the 1950s a Japanese toy company, Matsudaya, produced a line of cheap [[remote control]] toy trucks, boats and robots called Radicon, which used a low-power spark transmitter in the controller as an inexpensive way to produce the radio control signals.<ref name="Parker">{{cite web
| last= Parker
| first= John
| title= Flotsam & Jetsam – Control by Radio
| work= Model Boats website
| publisher= MyTimeMedia Ltd., UK
| date= September 2017
| url= http://www.modelboats.co.uk/news/article/flotsam-jetsam---control-by-radio/25527
| access-date= 20 March 2018}}</ref><ref name="Findlay">{{cite journal
| last1= Findlay
| first1= David A.
| title= Radio Controlled Toys Use Spark Gap
| journal= Electronics
| volume= 30
| issue= 9
| pages= 190
| date= September 1, 1957
| url= http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Electronics/50s/Electronics-1957-09-01.pdf
| access-date= November 11, 2015}}</ref> The signals were received in the toy by a [[coherer]] receiver.

Spark gap oscillators are still used to generate high-frequency high voltage needed to initiate welding arcs in [[gas tungsten arc welding]].<ref name="LincolnElectric">{{cite web
| title= TIG Welding Series: The Power to Perform
| publisher= Lincoln Electric website
| date= 2006
| url= http://www.lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/content/tigseriesreliable.asp
| access-date= 6 January 2019
| quote= ...the number one maintenance item on a TIG machine is cleaning and adjusting the spark gap.
| archive-date= 16 May 2006
| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060516040041/http://www.lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/content/tigseriesreliable.asp
| url-status= dead
}}</ref> Powerful spark gap pulse generators are still used to simulate [[electromagnetic pulse|EMPs]].