A set of external coils (A-coils) capable of producing nonaxisymmetric, predominantly n =1, fields with different toroidal phase and a range of poloidal mode m spectra has been used to determine the threshold amplitude for mode locking over a range of plasma parameters in Alcator C-Mod [I. H. Hutchinson, R. Boivin, F. Bombarda, P. Bonoli, S. Fairfax, C. Fiore, J. Goetz, S. Golovato, R. Granetz, M. Greenwald and et al. , Phys. Plasmas 1 , 1511 (1994)].
