27 Apr
1999
27 Apr
'99
4:37 p.m.
I agree in principle but I just double checked my memory and just looked at
my HT feed. It is only connected to the HT line and then drops down into a
conduit and under ground for the ~800 feet to the pedistal mounted
transformer. There is only the 1 connection at the pole. A friend of mine
used to burry lines for the local phone company and has hit on occasion
(when the locator screwed up) the 14KV drops and said all he ever finds is a
single wire from the result. He did say it is impressive when it gets
shorted however. He has melted teeth off the backhoe bucket and his ears
hurt for a while afterwords. It also works wonders on the ditch witch teeth
and the vibrating plow blades. Even though the power drops are supposed to
be a minimum of 3 feet down that is not always the case.
Dan
I don't know about where you come from but in my
state,
the power company is required to keep the ground current to
a minumum. The smallest power line I've see was two wires.
Much of the older telegraph lines used ground return. I don't
think it would be good for general power distribution. They also
used ground return on many telephone setups.
This reminds me of a story I once heard:
A phone repairman heard of this dog that could predict
when the phone would ring. A few seconds before the bell
rang, the dog would let out a howl.
He had to see this magic dog.
He when to the old ladies house and he found the dog chained
to the telephone box on the side of the house. He then realized
how the dog knew. You see, it was winter and the ground was
frozen at the box. This meant that when a ring came in, it
didn't have enough current to make the bell ring but there
was enough current to give the dog a strong shock through
the chain. The poor dog would get a nasty shock and urinate
on the ground. On the next ring, the urine would provide
enough conduction that the bell would ring.
That is the story of the magic dog.
Dwight
Dwight