🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3170@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM> steves@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM (Steve Shellans) writes:
>If you have an AC transmission line, each wire has a
>60Hz magnetic field around it (in USA).  If you place an inductor (at ground
>level) such that it is closer to one wire than the others, it seems to me
>you could draw power out of it.

Well, you probably could.   There's a story I heard once:
A transmission line somewhere crossed over a number of farmers' fields.  Some
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 have no idea how true this story is)

-- 
Steve Gaarder                                         
Cornell University, 171 Hollister, Ithaca NY 14853           607-255-5389
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