Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!strong
From: strong@tc.fluke.COM (Norm Strong)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Free power from 'whispering wires' ??
Keywords: power transmission
Message-ID: <4353@fluke.COM>
Date: 7 Jul 88 18:50:38 GMT
References: <3170@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM> <5373@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <537@ablnc.ATT.COM>
Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 24

In article <537@ablnc.ATT.COM> maxwell@ablnc.ATT.COM (Robert Maxwell) writes:
}In article <5373@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, sparks@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Steve Gaarder) writes:
}> In article <3170@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM> steves@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM (Steve Shellans) writes:
}> one figured out that if you wound a coil of wire around two of the towers
}> near the ground, you could draw power from it.  Soon all the farmers in the
}> area were doing it, and the power company freaked out when the losses on
}> that line went through the roof as a result.  It is said that the power
}> company couldn't stop the farmers, and wound up giving them free electricity
}> if the agreed to stop this inductive tapping.
}
}I can't verify if the story is true, but I have heard that farmers along
}the Columbia River tapped the power generated by the dams on the river.
}
}I was told that they used insulated wire for their fences and were able
}to light their homes and barns with it.

Get real!  I've heard this one since I was a kid.  It's one of the great body
of Urban Myths, and goes right along with the story about Standard Oil
suppressing the carburetor that would give every car 100miles per gallon.


-- 

Norm   (strong@tc.fluke.com)