"Daniel T. Burrows" <danburrows(a)mindspring.com> wrote: Hi Daniel 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