[TowerTalk] Working on High Voltage Lines

Dan Zimmerman N3OX n3ox at n3ox.net
Fri Apr 27 01:33:39 EDT 2007


>I  like the whole grounding rod thing to neutralize the charge.

It's AC, so the rod thing is just to control the breakdown of the
line-to-(lineman+helicopter) side of a capacitive voltage divider (the
other side is helicopter-to-world capacitance) ...  that thing would
arc all day if the lineman kept it 10 inches away from the line!

Different story if you're working on an HVDC line...

As far as working hot, I think they almost never shut down the power
at any stage in the game outside of your house unless they really have
to.  Even the Pepco guys who came to replace some insulators on the
(noisy) lines in my neighborhood just put on the big rubber gloves,
AFAIK.

Dan


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