Metspitzer wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:26:59 -0700 (PDT), JIMMIE
wrote:

On Apr 28, 7:02 am, "HeyBub" wrote:
Metspitzer wrote:
This seems unlikely. I would like to hear more details.
http://abcnews.go.com/WaterCooler/wireStory?id=10489334
BERLIN (Reuters) - German police are investigating a man for theft
after he siphoned electricity off a high-voltage overhead transmission
line for one month with the help of an ordinary meat hook, authorities
said on Tuesday.
[...]

Sure. I used to work for a company that did meter inventories for Rural
Electric Cooperatives.

About once a year they'd find somebody who had tapped into the primaries and
fed his own transformer (probably stolen).

More often, they'd find meters upside down (they run backwards) and meters
bypassed altogether.
Really, whenever the guys from Ga Power would do a power disconnect
they would pull the meter and put it back upside down and put a seal
on it until you wanted it hooked back up.

I have probably told this story before, but I want to hear it again.
grin

We went to a job in Texas. We got there on Thursday after hours and
Friday was a holiday. We asked the neighbor (duplex) if we could use
a drop cord for the weekend and they agreed. We went the long weekend
taking cold showers. We had a lamp, a stereo, and a hot plate.

Monday we went to work and told my sister (her husband was one of the
construction workers) to go and have the utilities turned on. When we
got home the power was still off. She said that the power company
closed a 6 but they would be out to turn the power on that day.

6PM and no one showed. We went outside to the meter and the power
company had left the meter in the can, but it was turned sideways so
it was not plugged into the buss. I told my brother in law (welder)
that all that was needed was to just cut the paperclip sized wire and
just turn the meter and plug it into the busses. After thinking
about having to take another cold shower we decided that plugging in
the meter and just telling the power company what we had done should
be enough.

I cut the tab and plugged the meter in. We were standing there
smoking a cigarette and I told him that plugging in the meter upside
down would make the meter run backwards.......I showed him how that
worked and we decided to just let it run like that for a few hours and
would flip it around before bed time.

When we got back in the house and started flipping for who would get a
hot shower first..........15 min after we had put the meter in, the
power company came out and found the meter upside down and pulled it
out and took it with them.

We had to go to the power company that day and explain what we had
done. They believed us and brought the meter back.

That's pretty good! I'd say you were very lucky to get power again as
fast as you did.