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From: john@hpcvla.HP.COM (John Eaton)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Re: Living near high tension lines
Message-ID: <1430001@hpcvla.HP.COM>
Date: Tue, 10-Nov-87 15:43:05 EST
Article-I.D.: hpcvla.1430001
Posted: Tue Nov 10 15:43:05 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 04:21:27 EST
References: <1079@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Organization: Hewlett Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 22


	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.

-------------------------------------

This is true!!! You can see these fences all over the midwest. They are easy
to spot because they all have to use insulators to hold up the wire. Sometimes
they will run the wire back to the farmhouse while other times they will use
a device called an "electric fence charger" to take the stolen power from the
fence and charge a storage battery. If you don't think you can get a lot of
power from these then you just try grabbing hold of one and see if it doesn't
knock you for a loop.



:) :) :)

John Eaton
!hplabs!hp-pcd!john