[Elecraft] OT: K3 and High Tension Wires

[Lewis Phelps]

Drawing from a decade of experience working as head of the PR department for a major electric utility (a long time ago), I’d like to suggest that arcing per se should not be a problem at any time with any power line if it is functioning properly. The individual transmission wires are spaced far enough apart that arcing shouldn’t be possible. Many utilities regularly wash down the insulators of high voltage transmission lines using specialized equipment that cleans condensed salt water fog off the insulators with deionized water (necessary to keep from zapping the guy running the spray nozzle). This is to prevent arcing between phases, which can otherwise occur in high humidity situations.  If there’s noise coming from lower-voltage distribution lines down “down the hill” I would name the prime suspect as cable TV equipment that’s hung on the same utility poles as the power line. If the RF interference is caused by power line arcing, it’s going to get detected and fixed pretty quickly by the utility. If it’s there all the time, it very likely isn’t the power company at fault. (This discussion doesn’t include any consideration of Power Line Communication technologies, which are an identifiably different kind of interference.)

See:  http://tdworld.com/overhead-distribution/insulator-washing-helps-maintain-reliability


Lew N6LEW



> On Mar 15, 2016, at 3:17 PM, Alan <n1al at sonic.net> wrote:
> 
> The 6 meter moonbouncer who lives up the hill from me told me he has no problem from the high-tension line that runs right by his place but has experienced noise from the lower-voltage lines farther down the hill.
> 
> I suspect that HT lines are probably less likely to have arcing than lower-voltage lines, simply because it would be a much bigger problem for the power company if they did.
> 
> Alan N1AL
> 
> 
> On 03/15/2016 02:27 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
>> On Tue,3/15/2016 12:56 PM, Rose wrote:
>>> It sounds like you're speaking of a distribution line.  Do you have
>>> any idea that the voltage is?  Is there more than one pole at each
>>> cross arm?  It could be almost anything up to 240 KV ... or more.
>>> In my semi-rural area the voltage for distribution is 14.4 KV, which
>>> is pretty usual these days.
>> 
>> I have a high voltage distribution line running along my property line
>> that has not been a problem in the 10 years I've lived here, but there's
>> been other power line noise around that's radiated from other poles.
>> 
>> 73, Jim K9YC
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Lew Phelps N6LEW
Pasadena, CA DM04wd
Elecraft K3-10 / KXV144 / XV432
Yaesu FT-7800 
Lew at N6LEW.US
www.n6lew.us

Generalized Law of Entropy: Sooner or later, everything that has been put together will fall apart.