High power electrical lines.

[balloonshark]

What's crazy is the miles of power lines in this country that are inspected by helicopter pilots. They fly between large arrays of wires, often where there's a break in the trees...that makes air currents less predictable. I couldn't find a video of those guys from the US, but here are some guys hotwashing the insulators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcjhjna9jZE

I notice there are a lot of drone videos....so it looks like they're doing more visual inspections by cameras using UAVs. The helicopter guys are crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGywP1-ZPAk

They are crazy and don't get paid nearly enough. It takes big pair to do what they do on a daily basis.

 

[disappoint]

What's crazy is the miles of power lines in this country that are inspected by helicopter pilots. They fly between large arrays of wires, often where there's a break in the trees...that makes air currents less predictable. I couldn't find a video of those guys from the US, but here are some guys hotwashing the insulators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcjhjna9jZE

I notice there are a lot of drone videos....so it looks like they're doing more visual inspections by cameras using UAVs. The helicopter guys are crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGywP1-ZPAk

3500 hp? I think he meant 3500 PSI.

 

[Muse]

I had a girl friend who lived next door to a PG&E substation and she was concerned about EMF's. I think she had a cat that had feline leukemia. I bought a relatively cheap device that was effective in determine field strength. We also had PG&E come out with one of their expensive hand held meters to survey fields in her apartment. I still have that device and use it once in a while. I've surveyed my house, determined what devices put out what kind of fields whenever I've had a concern.

In general anything below 2 Milli Gauss is fairly safe. If you have sustained levels higher than that it becomes a concern. It affects children more than adults.

A point source of EMF's falls off as the inverse of the square of the distance from the source. However, a line source (i.e. a power line) falls off as the inverse of the distance, not the square, so living near high power lines is much more of a concern than near a point source.

 

[Muse]

You could bury coils beneath them and "capture" energy via the transformer effect to supplement the power needs of your homestead. I would not recommend this as it's questionable both legally and morally.

Interesting point. It would be really hard for them to nail you. If they knew, they could, but how would they know? Anyway, I wouldn't want to live near high voltage power transmission lines.

 

[John Connor]

I had a girl friend who lived next door to a PG&E substation and she was concerned about EMF's. I think she had a cat that had feline leukemia. I bought a relatively cheap device that was effective in determine field strength. We also had PG&E come out with one of their expensive hand held meters to survey fields in her apartment. I still have that device and use it once in a while. I've surveyed my house, determined what devices put out what kind of fields whenever I've had a concern.

In general anything below 2 Milli Gauss is fairly safe. If you have sustained levels higher than that it becomes a concern. It affects children more than adults.

A point source of EMF's falls off as the inverse of the square of the distance from the source. However, a line source (i.e. a power line) falls off as the inverse of the distance, not the square, so living near high power lines is much more of a concern than near a point source.

Those cheap EMF detectors do nothing but display numbers. They may be good at ghost hunting but nothing more. I inquired about EMF detectors on a forum and the one you want will cost a few hundred.

Here's a whole shit load. http://www.lessemf.com/guide.html

I just type the model number in Amazon or eBay.

 

[slag]

I had a girl friend who lived next door to a PG&E substation and she was concerned about EMF's. I think she had a cat that had feline leukemia. I bought a relatively cheap device that was effective in determine field strength. We also had PG&E come out with one of their expensive hand held meters to survey fields in her apartment. I still have that device and use it once in a while. I've surveyed my house, determined what devices put out what kind of fields whenever I've had a concern.

In general anything below 2 Milli Gauss is fairly safe. If you have sustained levels higher than that it becomes a concern. It affects children more than adults.

A point source of EMF's falls off as the inverse of the square of the distance from the source. However, a line source (i.e. a power line) falls off as the inverse of the distance, not the square, so living near high power lines is much more of a concern than near a point source.

Feline leukemia is the number 1 killer of cats.

 

[bigi]

This

 

[surfsatwerk]

This

wtf

 

[Markbnj]

Interesting point. It would be really hard for them to nail you. If they knew, they could, but how would they know? Anyway, I wouldn't want to live near high voltage power transmission lines.

Maybe there would be some sort of detectable effect on the line? There are quite a few farmers around here who have leased right of way to electric companies, and still have access. If I were one of them I would consider this .

Since 9/11 most of the power line rights of way around here have been cleared of brush and clearly marked with trespassing warnings, as well as having locked gates at road crossings, so it would be harder to get those coils into the ground without being seen.

 

[DrPizza]

How are they not getting killed? It's one thing doing that from a helicopter but they're a ground. :hmm: Even from a helicopter you'll get a bit of lighting bolts as you need to equalize yourself first before you get on the line. Electricity can be really interesting at these really high voltages.

The suits they're wearing also helps protect them - effectively, they're faraday cages.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ahh did not realize they had faraday cage suits, that makes more sense.

 

[z1ggy]

Maybe there would be some sort of detectable effect on the line? There are quite a few farmers around here who have leased right of way to electric companies, and still have access. If I were one of them I would consider this .

Since 9/11 most of the power line rights of way around here have been cleared of brush and clearly marked with trespassing warnings, as well as having locked gates at road crossings, so it would be harder to get those coils into the ground without being seen.

I'm not sure if there would be a direct effect on the line. Current going through the wire produces a magnetic field. If you had coils in the ground, they would produce a current when that field passes through it. Since it now has moving current (once a load is hooked up to it) it will create it's own field as well. I guess somebody could detect that field by itself and figure out you had something there.

However, I'm not sure how much power one could actually produce using this. Most of the giant transmission lines are pretty tall. The field would be pretty weak once it got to ground level

 

[Markbnj]

I'm not sure if there would be a direct effect on the line. Current going through the wire produces a magnetic field. If you had coils in the ground, they would produce a current when that field passes through it. Since it now has moving current (once a load is hooked up to it) it will create it's own field as well. I guess somebody could detect that field by itself and figure out you had something there.

Yeah but that energy isn't free. There has to be some amount of draw down on the line, but I don't know if it would be at a detectable level unless a lot of people started doing it.

 

[fstime]

I heard the guys who frequently work on high power lines for a long time eventually go sterile..... true?

 

[z1ggy]

Yeah but that energy isn't free. There has to be some amount of draw down on the line, but I don't know if it would be at a detectable level unless a lot of people started doing it.

Of course it's not free. But it's a mutual coupling, so energy is conserved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductance#Coupled_inductors_and_mutual_inductance

 

[Red Squirrel]

Mythbusters did the power line power hog thing and could not get it to work. Though I think if I recall they had their coil in the wrong direction. I don't think they'd want to show something that actually works.

I think if you had a coil with many turns and had the coil going in parallel with the power line it would work as it would act like a transformer. Though, probably a rather weak one given the primary is only one "turn".

 

[Mixolydian]

I heard the guys who frequently work on high power lines for a long time eventually go sterile..... true?

Everybody eventually goes sterile.

 

[Markbnj]

Of course it's not free. But it's a mutual coupling, so energy is conserved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductance#Coupled_inductors_and_mutual_inductance

That page is beyond me, so I will have to take your word for it. All I know is, if I bury a coil under a power line and can plug my shit into it, that power has to be coming from somewhere.

 

[MrDudeMan]

That page is beyond me, so I will have to take your word for it. All I know is, if I bury a coil under a power line and can plug my shit into it, that power has to be coming from somewhere.

Removed unnecessary garbage. W/e.

If you tap a power line, they can find it easily using time domain reflectometery. In a nutshell, you send a signal down a transmission line with a fast edge and measure how long it takes for the energy to be reflected. Impedance discontinuities will present as faster-than-expected return energy based on what you know about the actual transmission line length. I've used a TDR several times on a much smaller scale, but the principal is the exact same.

You won't get shit for power by burying a transformer under a high voltage line, at least in terms of powering anything substantial in your house.