Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!spdcc!m2c!frog!die
From: die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Living near high tension lines
Message-ID: <1913@frog.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Nov-87 05:19:00 EST
Article-I.D.: frog.1913
Posted: Sat Nov  7 05:19:00 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Nov-87 04:44:04 EST
References: <9312@tekecs.TEK.COM> <1718@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1079@saturn.ucsc.edu> <688@uop.UUCP>
Reply-To: die@hydra.UUCP ()
Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA
Lines: 32

In article <688@uop.UUCP> robert@uop.UUCP (Robert  McCaul) writes:
>
>you could do what a buddy of mine did...
>
>(his barn was overshot by high voltage lines)
>
>wrap the rafters with coils, and make off with some free power!!
>
>his barn had "infinite" lighting this way!!!
>

	I imagine he had to have some sort of voltage regulator as the
induced EMF in his attic coils would vary with the currents flowing through
the power lines near his barn.  Since there were probably several phases and
even different circuits on the wires over his barn with differing degrees of
coupling to his pickoff coils, the actual voltage he observed was no doubt
not a function of the current on any one wire but of several.

	I should think the current flowing through a cross country power
line would change considerably as demand in the places it served varied.
I suppose that regional power pools must control the currents on intertie
lines within limits but don't certainly keep them constant.  Does anybody
know  better ?

	I have heard a similar story about farmers in the Midwest using
long stretches of barbed wire fence near long distance power lines for the
same "free" power gambit.  As I understand it the power companies were able
to sucessfully prosecute some of them for stealing power.

          David I. Emery    Charles River Data Systems   617-626-1102
          983 Concord St., Framingham, MA 01701.
	  uucp: decvax!frog!die