Topband: HVDC

[Gary Smith]

I have never had any personal experience with HVDC but I do have a 
personal experience with HVAC power lines that I will never forget.

I lived in Highland Indiana, about 1/2 mile south of I-80 and in 
between there were HVAC power lines and there were no houses 
underneath them and it was a perfect place for me to take my fiddle 
to practice. I was just starting to play this new instrument and the 
animals in the house didn't like the sound of me learning so to be 
kind I went and parked underneath the power lines, raised the trunk 
on my Dodge Caravan and practiced for several hours.

When I went to leave, the car wouldn't start though the engine would 
turn over and all of the features like radio and lights were working 
perfectly. I had never had a problem with that before with this car. 
I searched as much as I could to find fuse-wise what might be the 
problem but nothing was amiss. I looked in the Haynes repair book 
that I kept in the car and it showed a connector leading to the fuel 
pump in the undercarriage, between the passenger's door and the side 
sliding door. I went underneath to see if that connection had become 
compromised.

I was in a T-shirt, it was summer, warm and a little sweaty. As I was 
working underneath I felt what I thought was a bee sting on my 
forearm. Jerked the arm away but didn't see a Bee and went back to 
trying to find that connection and I felt another sting close to 
where the first one was. When I looked I saw it wasn't a Bee but 
instead, it was where my arm lightly brushing against the body of the 
car. The sting was from a small electric arc and it was burning my 
skin. There was nothing in the car that would cause that to happen 
and then I realized the power lines were overhead and that me being 
on the ground and touching the metal of the car was completing a 
connection from what I assume was inductance from the metal in the 
car, gathered from the lines overhead.

I called a friend to come and tow me back home and while I was 
sitting on the rear of the minivan waiting for him, I realized I was 
feeling a consistent vibration and that I could especially notice it 
by touching the rear bumper. It felt for the world like the car was 
running and I was feeling the vibration of the engine. The car was 
vibrating at 60 HZ from those overhead lines that had earlier caused 
me to get a small, white, pinpoint burn on my forearm.

It turns out the problem was the fuel pump was not working and 
whether it was damaged from that HV electricity or if it just by 
happenstance failed at that time, I have no idea but I never forgot 
that. And that was the day I also learned that fuel pumps were now 
being built into the fuel tank, surrounded by gasoline... I learned a 
lot that day.

I have 11 years of formal education in healthcare but I'm not an 
authority as to damage that electromagnetics may cause. My father 
worked around electronics and ham radio his whole life and died at 
97, never having cancer or anything like it. I'm not concerned much 
at all about RF exposure, but after experiencing what I personally 
did, I will never willingly live close to HVAC power lines if I have 
the choice.

73,

Gary
KA1J

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