The current produced is highest when the two metals are most widely separated from each other in the electropotential series, and when the material nearer the positive end is to the north, while that at the negative end is towards the south. The plates, one copper and another iron or carbon, are connected above ground by means of a wire with as little resistance as possible. In such an arrangement, the electrodes are not appreciably chemically corroded, even when they are in earth saturated with water, and are connected together by a wire for a long time.

It had been found that to strengthen the current, it was most advantageous to drive the northerly electropositive electrode deeper into the medium than the southerly electrode. The greatest currents and voltages were obtained when the difference in depth was such that a line joining the two electrodes was in the direction of the magnetic dip, or magnetic inclination. When the previous methods were combined, the current was tapped and utilized in any well-known manner.

In some cases, a pair of plates with differing electrical properties, and with suitable protective coatings, were buried below the ground. A protective or other coating covered each entire plate. A copper plate could be coated with powered coke, a processed carbonaceous material. To a zinc plate, a layer of felt could be applied. To use the natural electricity, earth batteries fed electromagnets, the load, that were part of a motor mechanism.
_________

@ joe
ok the information above is a repost however i believe that will most likely hold true for our best results that we should begin using for reproduction. i will give it a test at a later time when i can but i strongly believe thats going to be our base

@ Bill

bill i had a crazy idea that the voltage and current your reading strait from the volt meter might be only half of what it actually is, either that or its the best we have but its pulsed? either way i think you should measure from the cap to the other pole and see what you get. bypass the diode for this.

PS:  rumor has it Diodes are photovoltaic. so if your diode is holding a charge check to see if it is generating a current!

@ all

it appears here that the basic setup is to have the positive pole or plate an inch or two deeper then the negative.  also they should be kept atleast 3 feet appart, according to what i have read the farther the better per the telegraph people. they seem to need to be just slightly off from magnetic north and we also want the most dissimilair metals possible and apparently as bill discovered a big fat cap to smooth things over!.

if i missed anything let me know im taking notes hehehe.

@artic Yea most of that info is dead on but it seems you copied it out of a wiki or a patent i recognized the wording.  Well additionally i found this to be true and i think bill did too ... the results stay the same if you put your pipe in parallel to the ground about 6-12 inches down so  ___________________________Earth
                                                                                                                            horizontal
                                                                                                                 ___________________________                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                {___________________________}    COPPER PIPE

You still missed what i said  as well in my post.   you can take 3 peices of copper and 3 peices of zinc and hook like metals together think parallel buss on a battery bank       so the load is only powered by one set of leads from the outer or inner most peices of copper and zinc.. well  in my case. 

@ Bill idea struck me for you to try this ,  Take your carbon and hook a peice of copper to it with jumper and take your zinc screw or whatever neg you decide to use and put another peice of that metal to it.  this is basicly the same as what i described above but i wanted to see if using 2 different things in the positive case made it better or worse. If the weather permits
                                                                                                               

your right about the copying part joe, its strait out of the wiki for earth batteries, but it seems to be dead on from what we are doing thats why i copied. i think its going to prove to be the best thing available since those old school boys knew what they were doing for the most part.  i think the wiki is going to have the best method, and from there we are going to have to tweak it in wierd ways to get home current.

but we were talking about a standard method i thought so it was just my thought.

@ All:

I don't have much time to post now and will address the earlier posts after a while.  I just wanted to say a few things.  The Wiki stuff I believe I posted on or about page three of this topic and have been following that ever since.  That is why I try to stress the POLAR north south alligned with the MERIDIAN which is way different from magnetic north.  And my angle from the bottom of the magnesium block (Which Jeanna, is a fire starting block you can get at any camping supply place for about $4.) to the bottom of the carbon rod about 4 feet away is about 60 degrees.  Probably too much of an angle to be ideal, I am hoping to find a larger, longer magnesium pipe or tube that I can place deeper.  My best volts thus far is 1.8 and I agree with Joe who said a long time ago that this was probably pulsed dc of some kind.  I also very much agree with Artic Knight's thoughts on why the capacitor is working like it is. (I did find a small marking that said "22 F" on the side of it.)  That can't be 22 Farads can it?  That thing is so small.  I think that so many people believe this is just galvanic action they pass this by.  If Joe is correct about pulsed dc with possibly an ac component, we might be able to do all kinds of things as this progresses. We have better materials and more efficient circuits and...transistors to play with than Mr. Stubblefield and the others had.  Once I get my reports caught up from today's surveillance cases, I will get back on and address the past few pages of questions and ideas.  Oh also, yes open source all the way for me as well.  I have seen some on this and other forums that, after getting a lot of good minds to help them along...delete all of their posts and run to the patent office.  And I'll bet they didn't name everyone that helped them on the patent either.  Patents are a waste of time and money in my opinion based on experience. Free energy should be just that....free.  Of course, a little fame might be ok. Ha ha.  I'll see you all later on here.  Keep up all of the good work.  See what you started here Joe??????  Cheers.

Bill 

G'day Bill and all,

Checking for AC or pulsed DC is really easy, you don't need any sophisticated instruments.

Simply feed your input into say an audio transformer, you know the miniature things you can buy at electronic stores for a couple of bucks. If you get any electricity at all on the secondary you have the proof.

Hans von Lieven