Marconi originally made the radio but he used 13 of Nikola Tesla's patents to make it work. I suggest making a Tesla coil. Use a whole lot more electricity than 9V...lets try about 100KV next. Get a neon sign transformer and a high voltage capacitor. Look it up online or something. And try that.

You'd need an oscilloscope with memory to read a single pulse. You'd also need to broadcast quite a bit more than 9v to get much of anything at your receiver. Do a google search for "Marconi" to get an idea about how it works.

I will start off that in not exactly an expert in anything. At all (in fact I have a rather poor amount of knowledge about anything except what I’m working on because my dang memory is so bad). But I have a few idea’s that might help in some way.

I read something a while back, I think in reference to those plastic charge mats that are in development ( wireless charger) that higher frequencies travel further... and perhaps if you provide both coils with a ferrous core it would also help? Even if they were not physically connected I would imagine it would have an effect.

As for it not working unless you manually pulse it... I have had a similar problem with oscillators and coils before (I was stepping up voltage for a bulb/capacitor flash type thing, just for the fun), I think I was using a transistor flip flop but it could have been a 555... But anyway, it locked up, current only went one way through the coil when I turned it on in one direction, net result; second coil got a spike then nothing. Might be a good idea to think SCRs or motor/coil driving chips or even transistors, or a really robust oscillator.

Finally, be wary of using a multi-meter, if it doesn’t have an AC option it could be taking an average charge of +V and –V which would equal just about zero (if you have a symmetric oscillator that is), try hooking up some diodes to rectify the output if needs-be.

Shame the BEAM bot had to die, I love BEAM bots, and magbots I find especially fascinating, (after exams I’m considering doing an instructable or too on various magbot BEAM creatures got a few original ideas floating round) and those pendulum bots are good for nodding heads and things.

Anyway I digress, hope that is helpful,
Andy

It is definitely doable, a friend did this for science fair. He designed something to do this a for a few inches. But he worked with this guy who has been doing it for about 20 years...he had this cool beamy thing that did it a few feet.