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.