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From: larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Living near high tension lines
Message-ID: <2226@kitty.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 13:43:30 EST
Article-I.D.: kitty.2226
Posted: Thu Nov 12 13:43:30 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 18:46:26 EST
References: <9312@tekecs.TEK.COM> <1718@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1913@frog.UUCP> <1788@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Organization: Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, NY
Lines: 29
Summary: Fluorescent lamps...

In article <1788@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, eichin@athena.mit.edu (Mark W. Eichin) writes:
> I suspect it would be electric, not magnetic field effects that
> matter, mainly from the propaganda stuff I have seen with people
> walking under high-tension lines holding Flourescent tubes and having
> them glow...

	It only takes a few microamperes of current at several hundred volts
to ionize the gas in a fluorescent lamp.  If you held one end of the lamp in
one hand, while pointing the other end upward toward the power line - you
may well have a sufficient potential difference to ionize the gas - provided
you can get close enough, and provided there is enough voltage (lower voltage
lines like 4.16 kV won't create enough of a field close to the ground).  The
lamp won't be bright enough to be really useful, however.
	If you recall my recent article on the power line E-field, the
_potential_ is there, but the effective impedance will be much to high
to get any useful current flow unless you increase the length and cross-
sectional area of the pickup wire to a significant amount (as in my
1,000 foot wire example).  Also, in simple terms, the pickup wire functions
as a voltage divider when the distance between it and the power line, and
the earth is considered.
 
> someone want to work out that math? 

	Thanks, but no thanks.  I did my share already. :-)

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
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