Topband: Finding powerline noise

[Ford Peterson]

Here I go, coloring outside the lines again...

It occurs to me that hardware and insulator maintenance are the only real
fixes to power line noise.  Finding the source of the noise is a real
problem, especially when there are many points of noise sources in the
neighborhood.  What about this...

The leakage is between the wires and the hardware on the pole, right?  Well,
there is a source and sink to every circuit, right?  It seems to me that the
noise should be inducing currents flowing in the wood of the pole, sinking
it to ground, right?  So there is a current flowing in the pole, right?

Can a person wrap the pole with a few turns of wire and simply measure any
induced currents?  A good pole = zero current, a leaky pole=some current
flowing.  Possibly use a field strength meter as a detector?

This seems too easy.  What am I missing.

Ford-N0FP
ford@cmgate.com