Beloved Leader wrote:

}A local shop has a neon sign in the trash.
}...
}Is there any reason I should grab it?

1: if you have several MILES of electric fence and you really want those
uppity cows to know exactly who is boss...

2: you can conduct your own experiment with lightning flashes and
primordial soup, looking for pre-historic amino acids

3: many years back an acquaintance had a billing disagreement with the
local baby Bell (US Worst, if you have to know). In the midst of this,
Worst decided to show him who had the upper hand by disconnecting his
service.

He figured that since he didn't need the phone lines (being disconnected),
they would make a perfect test bed for an experiment he had been pondering
for quite some time. To wit, how many volts do you need to induce
"cross-talk" between line pairs from a house to the CO?

He waited till 3am (to decrease the chance of a nasty surprise to any
neighbors) then he ran his high voltage (non-current-limited) XFMR to his
phone line (having dis-connected it from his house wiring and
dis-connected the anti-lighting stuff) and plugged it in. The house
lights dimmed a bit for about 30 seconds, then came back full. To be
thorough, he then grounded on side of the secondary and ran both sides of
the phone line to the hot side of the secondary and re-powered for 30
seconds.

The phone company had several trucks in the neighborhood the next
day...some of the repairmen were asking residents if they saw where the
lightning had hit.

He did this a few more nights before he got bored and payed his bill,
figuring it had cost Worst more than it had cost him.

Stan.