Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful
transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station
built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent
tubes.

He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something
similar.

Alec


"javawizard" wrote in message
...
In the 1920's a radio station in Schenectady, NY built a powerful
transmitter. In those days before FCC regulations, not knowing just
how big to make a transmitter in order for the signal to be received
some distance away, the station set up to broadcast at 500,000 watts.
It requires about one watt to be received four blocks away. A cell
phone is three watts. This station broadcast at such tremendous power
that they could be heard around the world. People in New York didn't
even need radios. They could sometimes hear voices in their furnaces
and coming off chain-link fences. Light bulbs lit up in people's
houses even if they were switched off. - from www.clip-text.com

Alec wrote:

Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful
transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station
built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent
tubes.

He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something
similar.

Please provide citations for this story; it retells what appears to be
an "urban legend". Here is another take on the story:

=============QUOTED MATERIAL=========================================
From: "Steve Maudsley"
Message-ID:
Newsgroups: uk.legal
Subject: Theft of electricity?
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:12:00 -0000
NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.103.216.21
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:14:40 GMT
Organization: Virgin Net Usenet Service


"Jeff" wrote in message
...



But a transformer still involves a direct physical connection to the
mains via the primary. The primary is consuming current via its
physical connection, whatever may happen to the current after it has
entered the primary.


The power line *is the primary*!! It is just that the secondary is
separated from it by a larger distance than normal.

In any case I believe that someone was prosecuted some years ago
for doing what it being suggested.

I do recall a story about 30 years ago (possibly apocryphal) about a farmer
who lived on the UK side of the Radio Luxemburg transmitter and powered his
cattle shed from the radio waves, and was prosecuted. Radio Luxemburg had
some sort of phased array and the cows electrical use disrupted the beam.
================END OF QUOTED MATERIAL====================================

Michael

On Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:59:56 -0500, msg wrote:

Alec wrote:

Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful
transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the
station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using
fluorescent tubes.

He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something
similar.

Please provide citations for this story; it retells what appears to be
an "urban legend". Here is another take on the story:

=============QUOTED MATERIAL=========================================
From: "Steve Maudsley" Message-ID:
Newsgroups: uk.legal
Subject: Theft of electricity?
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:12:00 -0000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.103.216.21
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:14:40 GMT Organization: Virgin
Net Usenet Service


"Jeff" wrote in message
...



But a transformer still involves a direct physical connection to
the mains via the primary. The primary is consuming current via
its physical connection, whatever may happen to the current after
it has entered the primary.


The power line *is the primary*!! It is just that the secondary is
separated from it by a larger distance than normal.

In any case I believe that someone was prosecuted some years ago for
doing what it being suggested.

I do recall a story about 30 years ago (possibly apocryphal) about a
farmer who lived on the UK side of the Radio Luxemburg transmitter and
powered his cattle shed from the radio waves, and was prosecuted.
Radio Luxemburg had some sort of phased array and the cows electrical
use disrupted the beam.
================END OF QUOTED
MATERIAL====================================

Michael

Didn't Tesla propose using DC current, basically broadcast/produced from
thousands of transmitters. In order to use the electrical current/field,
all one had to do was ground one side/wire to Earth. The other side or
wire would be the receptor/antenna for lack of a better term.

I'm not a technical person but I think I have the basic premise right.

christopher wrote:

Didn't Tesla propose using DC current, basically broadcast/produced from
thousands of transmitters. In order to use the electrical current/field,
all one had to do was ground one side/wire to Earth. The other side or
wire would be the receptor/antenna for lack of a better term.

I'm not a technical person but I think I have the basic premise right.


No. It wasn't DC, since DC is direct current. That was Edison who
would have needed a power plant every half mile or so. Tesla was hyping
"Broadcast power" which was lossy broadband RF power that would wipe out
most of the usable RF spectrum. Due to the 'Inverse Square Law', it was
impractical, and always will be.

Tesla was responsible for AC power distribution, which ****ed Edison
off.


--
http://improve-usenet.org/index.html

aioe.org, Goggle Groups, and Web TV users must request to be white
listed, or I will not see your messages.

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There are two kinds of people on this earth:
The crazy, and the insane.
The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Tesla was responsible for AC power distribution, which ****ed Edison
off.

Rumor was that Edison couldn't understand how one could
measure 120 volts between any two of three terminals.
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
christopher wrote:
Didn't Tesla propose using DC current, basically broadcast/produced from
thousands of transmitters. In order to use the electrical current/field,
all one had to do was ground one side/wire to Earth. The other side or
wire would be the receptor/antenna for lack of a better term.

I'm not a technical person but I think I have the basic premise right.


No. It wasn't DC, since DC is direct current. That was Edison who
would have needed a power plant every half mile or so. Tesla was hyping
"Broadcast power" which was lossy broadband RF power that would wipe out
most of the usable RF spectrum. Due to the 'Inverse Square Law', it was
impractical, and always will be.

Tesla was responsible for AC power distribution, which ****ed Edison
off.


Tesla worked for Edison when he came up with AC power distribution.
Edison favored DC for some reason and Tesla quit and went to work for
Westinghouse. When the electric chair was proposed Edison did everything
he could to discredit it because it used Tesla's AC power.

Dave N

christopher wrote:

snip
Didn't Tesla propose using DC current, basically broadcast/produced from
thousands of transmitters. In order to use the electrical current/field,
all one had to do was ground one side/wire to Earth. The other side or
wire would be the receptor/antenna for lack of a better term.

FWIW, the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer
describes some of Tesla's ideas and also has a list of references to more
recent wireless energy distribution schemes.

Michael

Walt Davidson wrote:
On Sat, 9 Aug 2008 14:35:25 +0100, "Alec"
wrote:

Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful
transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station
built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent
tubes.

He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something
similar.

If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), did it make the
signal weaker for everybody else?

Unlikely anywhere other than in the very near vicinity, and at that
range who would have noticed.

--

Brian

"Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful
transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the
station
built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent
tubes.

He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something
similar.

If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), did it make the
signal weaker for everybody else?

73 de G3NYY


In the version that I heard it was the null that the 'suck out' caused that
led to an investigation that resulted in the prosecution.

Now whether this is true or not is another matter.

73
Jeff

Jeff wrote:
"Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful
transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the
station
built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent
tubes.

He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something
similar.
If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), did it make the
signal weaker for everybody else?

73 de G3NYY


In the version that I heard it was the null that the 'suck out' caused that
led to an investigation that resulted in the prosecution.

Now whether this is true or not is another matter.

It seems to me that a resonant structure to capture energy would
re-radiate so I can't see where such a null would come from, the
wavelength is long so the path difference between the main tx and the
re-radiator would make such a phase shift difficult to achieve.

--

Brian