In article , Marland
wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
On 18/12/2020 13:34, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article , Martin Brown
wrote:
On 18/12/2020 13:15, NY wrote:
"Andrew" wrote in message
...
If they were migrating geese then there could be some free roasted
xmas dinners :-).

Perhaps those 11Kv lines are a bit too 'saggy' though ?. How would
they stay apart during high winds, which are expected in that part
of the country ?..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...ntral-55334891

That was my thought: if the starlings landing and taking off stretch
and swing the wires so much that they touch, even in cold weather
when the heat hasn't made them expand, then a gale could do the
same. The wires need to be tightened.

It was a hell of a lot of starlings on each wire. Individually they
may not weigh much but on those numbers and all acting in synchrony
they must be well beyond normal design tolerances.

Our local mains in the village is three phase aluminium core wrapped
around a steel hawser. It proved strong enough to support most of the
weight of a tree. The recoil when the tree was cut free was
spectacular!

All the poles in the village are now banana shaped with "do not
climb" warning stickers on them.

Would insulating them to prevent this actually cost a lot?

Not really.

Many of the distribution single phase wires in villages start out with
insulation on them but after a few decades it perishes and hangs down
in strips arcing and sparking in the rain when it touches another
phase. Sometimes it was bad enough to trip out the circuit breaker.

Ours used to be like that before they replaced it with the modern
composite aluminium cable with the internal steel hawser.


I don‘t know all boards did it but SWEB which covered the area where I
grew had insulation on some 11Kv cables where they crossed roads,maybe
33Kv ones as well but I didn‘t pass under any of those while cycling to
school. That would be mid to late 1960‘s and I can remember when a new
line was installed the plastic insulation stood out because it was green
covered. Also at that time a lot of the pylons of the original 132kv
grid.used to have a safety net of wires where the lines crossed a road
or railway ,that died out some time ago possibly some of that network was
transferred from the CEGB to the regional boards, occasionally you still
see the brackets for them on and old pylon like this one .

https://goo.gl/maps/FmTkg6u6y27m1kXe9

GH

Nets were used when cables were being replaced

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle