In article , Matt
scribeth thus
On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:56:13 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Yes, but those cables are NOT running at full AC.

Oh yes they are.

For a start there is no such thing as half AC and more to the point if
the lines were out of service then they would always be earthed at the
remote ends, with earths placed at the adjacent towers from the

When they were rewiring the line for Wisbech to Stocking Pelham it
seemed they had earths on every pylon!...

conductors to the pylon structure / earthwire and the overhead line
worker would approach the conductor by climbing across the insulator
strings. In such circumstances you shouldn't ever see discharge and
you'd only wear normal clothing rather than a mesh suit.

So what you are seeing is not just pickup from an adjacent in service
line and in essence that is *exactly* how live line working on HV is
performed.



This is quite a good site on the subject...


http://members.tripod.com/~aberkers/work.html
--
Tony Sayer