All fixed!

[W1AEX]

A couple of days ago during a period of high winds a pole in the center of town snapped at the base and as it began to tilt it snapped again about 2/3 of the way up. The power, phone, and cable lines seemed unfazed by this catastrophe and did a fair job of holding the pole up in spite of both breaks. As shown in the first picture, the power company sent a truck over with a big clamp at the end of the boom to secure things temporarily. This morning as I rolled into the coffee shop parking lot the "repair" that was installed until everything can be moved to the new pole cracked me up. It definitely falls into the category of "JS" technology with two large planks bolted together to splint the pole near the top and then ropes wrapped around the broken pole and the new pole to hold it all together.

To their credit the power company is replacing the ancient power poles from the 1950's era that are present in my town with all new stuff. In my own neighborhood they are installing all new poles, new polymer insulators, new transformers, new primary wiring, and new tri-plex secondary wiring. The local area supervisor of field operations told me that by the end of March there will not be a pole within .5 miles of me that is not brand new. Sounds good to me!

Rob W1AEX

[W6ZKH]

Well Rob, as an old "Lineman" from Ma Bell, that is what is done in an emergency and usually holds until a "Joint Meet" with the Telco, CATV and Power company.  Looks to me they are waiting for Telco and CATV to transfer their cables before they do the power transfer.  The majority of the strain is caused from Telco cables, as looks like they have some hefty size cables on that 3 way deadend.  I must admit that is is quite scarey to be under 12-14kv held up by ropes and 2x12's bolted, but hopefully they will have power company there with the boom truck and pole clamp to hold up that upper section.  I have been on worse situations though... like "everything" on the ground... what a mess, hi.

John W6ZKH

[W1AEX]

Hi John,

Yes, those Telco cables are quite substantial and were probably exerting quite a bit of sideways pressure on that skinny old pole. The adjacent pole across the street snapped a few years ago and on the replacement pole they added a couple of arms that extended out about 8 feet where they hung the Telco cables to put a little slack into the lines to take some stress off the pole in the picture. I would guess that it's a huge project to splice in a couple of extra feet with bundles like that!

I can't imagine how you could concentrate on the tasks at hand while working with those HV lines above you. I believe that the distribution lines in this area are 34KV which must be real exciting to be close to. Using two bucket trucks they moved the HV primary line over to one of the newly installed poles in our neighborhood without cutting power. I have no clue how they accomplished that but somehow they did. The picture below shows one of the crews installing the new tri-plex secondary wiring on that pole. Once they get all the new tri-plex wiring done they will replace all the HV primary wiring. That kind of work is a little too close to the big stuff for my taste!

73,

Rob W1AEX

[W6TOM]

  One of my coworkers has "bare handed" 500 KV. The transmission guys wanted to know what type of interference is created when they bond on to a 500 KV conductor. They sent him up in a two man bucket, the boom is insulated, with a battery powered spectrum analyzer that had the ability to do a screen capture. He wore a stainless steel mesh suit and gloves as did the other guy, they put a probe  on a hot stick that has a wire to clamp on the conductor and bonds the insulated bucket to the conductor.

 Now you can grab that conductor. BE ONE WITH THE FORCE!!!

[N1BCG]

An engineering mentor and I were inspecting the Antenna Tuning Unit of an AM b'cast station when it was discovered that a connection was coming loose. I suggested switching to the other tower (it had two for a directional array at night) and reducing the power.

"No need. We can do this right now" he replied and pulled out a uninsulated adjustable wrench. "How about if I get insulated gloves?" I offered, but he dismissed my concerns with "Watch this". Just what I didn't want to hear.

He reached over and rapidly grabbed the copper tubing that connected the output of the ATU with the base of the tower. "See? Now I'm at the right potential". He then proceeded to tighten the connection with the wrench in his other hand.

Good thing we were wearing insulated boots and standing on dry gravel.

[W1AEX]

Tom, the practice of "bare handing" a 500KV line, even in an insulated bucket, is not something I would want to attempt! I find electricity to be shocking!

Clark, the bare handed wrenching of that live antenna connection could have turned out very badly. I hope you were standing a respectable distance from that lunatic. He probably got away with it because the station was out-of-phase right? (Just kidding!)

I was fascinated when IMAX released a DVD showing the HV maintenance done by a guy named "Spider" who wore a mesh Faraday suit and was delivered to the HV line by helicopter. His final comment at the end of the video was pretty funny.  "There's only three things I've ever been afraid of: electricity, heights, and women. And I'm married too!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkFH8lLvKZ0  

[W6TOM]

 I have this video, what I want to know is.... How do they inspect the center phase??? Looks to be a bit hairy!! Go phase to ground, have a short bad day, phase to phase, a SHORTER bad day!!

 

[KA2DZT]

I was wondering the same thing.  They where handling multiple phases.  What about those spacers they have on the lines.  I concluded that all four lines must be on the same phase.  What else could it be, the spacers were made from metal.

Fred

[W6TOM]

 They run multiple conductors on a phase because of skin effect, the multiple conductors increase the surface area, not sure if the spacers are conductive or not.

 I have a lot of respect for the line men, they have a difficult and dangerous job, a YOUNG man's job too. Over the years I've supported their mobile radio needs.

 A number of years ago I supported a crew that was redoing the cross arms on a 115 kv transmission circuit that ran through the bay lands along San Francisco Bay. They were extending the cross arms and also strengthening them in preparation to reconductor the entire circuit. The lattice tower line had two circuits, one one each side, they would do a side at a time. The area is very difficult to access and environmental concerns add another layer of difficulty, the solution, use helicopters.

 A helicopter would fly into the staging area, it had a 50 foot cord underneath, two guys in proper safety equipment which includes a climbing harness come out and clamp onto that 50 foot cord. Away they go, very impressive as there were several helicopters. The helicopter comes in next to the tower and hovers while the two guys get out. When everyone is in place the helicopter comes back and picks up larger plastic trash cans that have the steel and tools for the job.

[n1exi]

oh my gosh! - i love getting high! - but i do it in my room - keep my boots and hardhat on!
greg - n1exi

[W3RSW]

And you start furiously fanning the air when you hear your mother coming up the stairs .