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Question on power transmission lines

R

RBoots

Well-known Member
One of the crews at work yesterday was doing what we call crack sealing on a paved road. They were under the huge power lines that are on those huge metal towers. They had stopped under them to refill the machine. All the guys that were reaching over the side of the truck to get more boxes of material all got a shock.They said it was like an electric fence, and they all jumped when it bit them, as they weren't expecting it. They said it was like an electric fence, and they all jumped when it bit them, as they weren't expecting it. They said as long as they didn't touch the truck with uncovered skin it was ok, but the second they did, they got a bit of a jolt. It didn't seem to be too humid yesterday, but is that what was causing it? I've seen those same lines steam raindrops before, so apparently they have some heat to them as well. Anyone that lives near them have anything like that happening?
 
Here in Ohio, years ago we were adding soffits and gutters to a house that was about 150 yards from the high tension lines.The house had aluminum siding and our ladders were also aluminum. Every time you touched the house or ladder you got a shock. We put in 8' copper clad grounding rods and wired it up ' total of six rods. Never could stop the discharge. another time just recently my truck was parked under a transmission line and every time I touched the truck I got zapped.
 
If you stand under the transmission lines with a 4' fluorescent lamp and hold it by the end and extend it toward the lines it will glow. Another thing that can happen is with smoke. A really thick smoke cloud under the wires can create a path for it to arc to the ground since there is enough conductive residue in really thick smoke.
 
They do indeed induct electrical charges into metal, and if flesh is placed between the metal and ground it can tingle pretty good. Holding a flourecent light bulb up in the air under one will cause the bulb to glow. (not full bright, but way visible. I have been under a 750,000 volt line and gotten tweaked by it. 80 to 100 volts initial voltage, till a solid connection dropped it to 25 or so. transmission lines are now being built for use with DC and 1,000,000 volts or more. Today we can use sophisticated electronics (inverter devices of high voltage capacity in series arrays) to create the voltage and then return it to AC at the other end. These have no inductive losses, and substantial reduction in transmission loss compared to HV AC. Jim
Untitled URL Link
 
Finally, someone else that believes in DC transmission with semiconductor voltage converters.
 
I wouldn't want to live in that house, getting zapped all the time if you weren't paying attention!!
 
Years back Down at Tri Green auction one morning early my one buddy and i were looking for some our equipment that they had moved from the last sale to a new row , and my buddy thought that the one piece was his and wanted to check the tag # and it was setting under one of the towers that run thru the sale lot . So he got out of the pick up and went and checked the tag and when he went to get back in the truck when he went to grab the door handle there was a loud ZAP and he was on the ground , Now we all know use jockey's are wright in the head ands we have to try the same thing over a couple times so he gets up and grabs for the door handle again and ZAP back on his donkey . Well i guess twice was enough as he told me to move the truck away from the power lines so i had to crawl across all the junk we had in the cab and move the truck. Then when they got to that row there were many guys that got Zapped , those lines were really sizzlen that day more so then any other day that i have walked that lot.
 
Thanks for the explanation Jim, helps understand it. Must be quite a bit floating around under one of those. Makes you wonder how little it would take for the big power to decide you are a good or better path to ground through the air, especially if you're already getting a tingle from the "radiant" juice around it? I'm no electrical engineer...
 
Had a complaint about a steel siding house near a 69KV power line, that shocked children. The house had a varying voltage on it, from 2 to 3 volts up to 12 or 13 as I recall. Had the electrical engineers out form the power company, but they did not admit any fault on their part. I finally made the owners install two ground rods and run bare copper ground wires to ground the siding. And I'm not sure that really solved the problem.
 
AC power lines create magnetic lines of flux. which will create current in a metal object---the intensity of the flux is measured in Gauss. a transformer utilizes the same phenomena to step up or down voltage
 
One night up near Allentown ,PA I needed to stop for the night and pulled in to a motel. This was like a motel6 or such and not a rinky dink place. Now it was misty and very damp having been raining most of the day. As you have said the lines were crackling. Boy did I get POPPED when I stepped out of the truck. Yes almost as bad as a cow fence. Pulled out my meter and took a measure. There was over a 300 volt potential on my truck!
 
There's a 750,000 volt set of lines going over my dad's farm, at certain times when driving a tractor under the lines you can hold your finger a half inch or so from a fender etc. and it would arc. On wet weather days the lines crackel and snap. Don't like being near them. The one time compensation for the towers and the "distractions" was almost nothing.
 
The 20 year old galvanized woven wire fence in one of my pastures goes under a power line,all the galvanizing is gone and the fence is rusted under the power line and out about 10ft each way.The rest of the fence is fine not rusted and wire is still coated.
 
We bought a field of straw from a local farmer and the first thing he told us was not to park our steel thrower wagons under the high power lines........because we would get shocked when we tried to hook back up to them.
 

Your vehicle , fence or siding becomes the secondary windings of a transformer when alternating lines of magnetic flux pass through them. There could also be some static.
If you want to hear crackling and humming there are three sets of 500KV towers and one 230KV tower line at the back of my farm. At times there is snowfall with those huge wet sticky snowflakes and very little wind. The 500KV is shorting to earth and to the other lines due to electricity traveling across the insulators.

Birds usually won't roost on high voltage transmission lines .
The power lines are also transmit a 60Hz radio wave that shows up as a harmonic or overloads the front end of radio recievers .
 
Pretty funny when a coffee truck pulls under bus in a high voltage yard and the truck is electrified and nobody can get coffee without shocks.
 
We have electric fence running under one and it is fun trying to work on it sometimes. Shut the charger off and still get zapped from the overhead power.
 
Back when I used radios from office to mobile units range could easily be doubled when close to a transmission line as office was 4 miles from same line.
 
As a kid we built a fort under some powerlines. One guy got a box of romex and wired a IIRC 40 watt bulb on one end, stretched the coils out on the ground, we had light in our fort!!




























Edison is still wrong. He was trying to send low voltage dc. Too many amps for the wires. Ohm could have helped explain it to him.[/quote]
 
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