Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!lll-tis!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!awylie From: awylie@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Free power from 'whispering wires' Message-ID: <44000012@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk> Date: 8 Jul 88 10:02:00 GMT References: <3170@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM> Lines: 7 Nf-ID: #R:tekgen.BV.TEK.COM:-317000:pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk:44000012:000:487 Nf-From: pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!awylie Jul 8 10:02:00 1988 This sounds like a typical urban legend. Whilst you can undoubtedly induce a voltage in a coil placed near power lines, the voltage would only be a few millivolts. You could not even light a bicycle lamp, let alone power your house from it. After all, you are basically makinga transformer, but the primary has one turn, the coils are yards apart, and the core is air rather than iron. Altogether a very inefficient device. By the way, as far as I know, ALL normal power lines are AC.