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Real Life EMF Experiences?
ilander asks: "I've been looking to buy my first home recently and found one that seemed perfect. The one downside is that there are power lines directly overhead (in the yard) as well as a high tension power line tower in the empty lot in back, less than 200 feet away from the house.
So does anyone have any personal experience working/living near power lines? Aside from the possible health risks, which may or not exist (depending on who you ask), will I run into any problems with my monitors and TVs? What about DSL, cable and my 802.11b network? How about digital satellite reception?
Any help is appreciated!"
The government mind-rays will be scrambled by the high-energy power lines.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
That and buying a Jesus Jones album are my two great regrets from childhood..
Sure - I'll die a slow and painful death from cancer, but will my TVwork? :)
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
You may want to ask how it might impact your health. Google it to find articles like this one in Wired.
Mysterious Kokomo Hum
I grew up near Kokomo and still have relatives that live there. However none of them have ever complained of the hum.
Our first house was in close proximity to overhead powerlines. They were less than 200 ft away. More like less than 50.
The three years we lived there, we didn't notice anything strange health-wise.
I recall seeing some people do the following (not sure if this is indicative of possible health issues):
1.Take a florescent light bulb - like the overhead lights in most garages and offices. Make sure its dark out.
2. Stand under the powerline.
3. Grab the light fixture with both hands - one at either contact point (the metal ring around the outside, not the pins).
4. See if the light glows.
The theory (I guess) was that this indicated power/voltage/whatever was 'bleeding' from the powerlines. The folks who did this swore this was proof that the area wasn't safe to live in.
YMMV.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
...I do. And the third hand is indeed as useful as many seem to believe.
...
BIggest issue I see is resale value. How long you plan to stay will affect things also. You may well be convinced that there are not problems with the power lines but it will be difficult to convince someone else to take it off your hands in x number of years.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
I lived 15 years or so 200 feet from high voltage lines. And 500 from a substation. My family and my neighbors are fine. Of course I post on Slashdot so I guess that answers you question. I don't think anything happens from being near them. I didn't even care about it when I found out something might happen.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
1) purchase house
2) purchase rats
3) in a spare room build 2 rat cages, one that is also a faraday cage.
4) treat both groups of rats the same. no fair giving extra snuggles to the ones in the faraday cage
5) every year, have a vet check both groups of rats. If there is no difference, then chances are you don't have a problem. If the group NOT in the faraday cage has more health problems, move asap.
I worked my way through college installing sprinkler systems for lawns and landscapes. We used a 16' metal trailer with an expanded steel deck, a steel pipe rack, and several metal lockers. On one job we parked the trailer under high voltage powerlines and got a sizeable shock if we touched the trailer with damp boots or sweaty hands.
I have also head of people filling a 55 gallon drum with coils of copper wire and stealing power from high-tension wires.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
It was a particularly cold night in winter and I was walking out to open the gate to the yard; there'd been a sleet and the fence was coated with ice. Except... When I walked up to the lock, I noticed that one length of chain between the gate and post was free of ice. When I touched it, it was noticeably warm.
I went back to get my meter, unhooked the chain, and measured the voltage between the gate and post; it measured a wonderful 2.7 volts. Silly me, I then switched the meter to measure current. What as I thinking, using a cheap multimeter across enough current to heat up a heavy metal chain? Luckily I only blew its fuse.
I called the power company and told them about the stray voltage problem; within a few days they'd established a new ground and my fence is now down to 1/2 volt.
Despite all the people who want to sue to make a buck, there is *no* scientific evidence that living near power lines, using cellphones, or sending your kids to a WiFi enabled school will hurt anyone.
A few months ago, during a rather spectacular thunderstorm, we a lightning strike _very_ close to our house. :)
Most of our NIC cards' and our router's ports got toasted, while leaving the internal circuitry of our computers utterly untouched.. they ran flawlessly both before, through, and after the incident. No reboots, no power glitches.. nada. The cards passed diags fine; the router would boot up ok, too.. except..
None of the lights indicating CAT5 connectivity lit up. Some component substitutions eventually revealed that all of the rj45 interfaces had been smoked.
A final, glaring clue that the lightning bolt's EMP was indeed the culprit was the fact that a 30" tv that had been on in the room at the time now exhibits _severe_ orange and green casts all the way out to the corners of the crt at right angles to each other. The mask is now MAG-MO-TIZED in a major way.
I'm gonna need a really muscular degausser.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
I live less than 200 feet from high tension power lines and have never experenced any problems with the wireless network in my house.
The only real problem I had was putting an addition on my house. In my town, it is against bylaws to put a permanent structure closer than 100 feet from power lines. When my wife and I were in the process of putting one on we had to have our yard surveyed four times, and even then we had to change our plans. The foundation of the new addition is now 100' 1" away from the lines. You may want to think about this, or check your town bylaws if you plan on adding to the house in the future.
There's also a site called Power Line Facts that may be helpful. Like they say, go buy a power meter, then do another house inspection. If the meter's reading 4mG or higher, run away. Fast.
And what's Power Line safety without a blog?
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
As a amateur radio operator I have heard people that have found radio interference being generated from overhead power lines. Most of the interference has been in the lower frequencies, low as in AM broadcast radio, HF amateur, maybe up to TV and FM broadcast. The causes were something like failing insulators, damaged transformers, and branches falling onto the wires. In most cases a call to the power company would result in a quick fix. It is unlikely to affect higher frequency devices such as WiFi, satellite TV, and cell phones.
One current concern is the possible use of Broadband over Power Lines (BPL). A form of BPL proposed to the FCC would occupy frequecies from 2Mhz to 80Mhz being carried down the medium and low voltage power lines. Since power lines were never intended to carry such high frequencies the amount of "leakage" is likely to be quite high. The leaked RF energy would likely cause all kinds of trouble for electronics in your home. Computer monitors, TVs, radios, etc. all have internal circuits that work at these frequencies and are unlikely to have sufficient shielding since BPL would be allowed much higher levels of leaked energy than seen previous if the law changes go into affect. More info can be found on the American Radio Relay League website (www.arrl.org).
If the powerlines run over that property, then most likely the power company has an easement, which roughly (I'm no lawyer) means that should something happen, they can wheel a crane into your backyard to do work, and you will have to live with it. And if they have to take the fence down, or nock out part of your house to get there, they will. (Though they will fix it later). You will really have to check this out with the local government, and it may not be that simple.
Another thing is that power lines make noise. It may not seem like much during the day, but it may drive you nuts at night.
I'd stay away from it for just those two reasons.
grisha.org
I don't know what the science is, but I know the following:
My aunt, uncle, and cousins lived next to (what I believe was) a cellular-phone tower. My aunt died of breast cancer, my cousin developed a beign tumor on his chest, and my uncle now has cancer (I believe testicular).
Then again, it could be coincidence.
This may be an urban legend but it was recounted to me by my university lecturer.
A while ago here in blighty there was a court case which involved a gentleman who lived under a power line. The gentleman in question was accused of stealing electricity from the power company and they were trying to prosecute.
He had facilitated the alleged theft by placing one half of a step down transformer in the loft(attic)of his home and fed the output into his electricity supply. He had been gleaning free electricity like this for years.
The court case was dropped when the court explained to the power company that to succesfully prosecute they would have to admit that electro-magnetic radiation was entering the house and therefore existed at points beyond the transmission line previously claimed as safe.
If the power company had pursued the case then it would have opened a flood-gate of suits relating to cancer etc.
Error: sig not found, Please reboot Universe and contact your local system administrator.
And do they smoke? Drink lots of caffeine?
Eat meat?
Excercise?
How's your family history of this?
-1, FUD
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.