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Military Uses 'Bat-Hook' To Tap Power From Lines
Zothecula writes "As soldiers are fitted out with more and more electrical sytems to extend their capabilities, they become increasingly dependent on the power needed to run them. Since soldiers in the field don't always have ready access to an electrical outlet when they need to top up the batteries, the US Air Force has developed a device that taps directly into the electricity flowing through overhead power lines ... a kind of bat-hook for real-life superheroes."
You might think you are a real-life superhero, but you are probably not.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
There is prior art in Indian cities I believe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4802248.stm
The addition of the spike to get through insulated lines is a nice addition, but I don't know that its really needed, some how I imagine the places where this will get used don't bother with such things as insulation. Its a common practice to steal power in 3rd world countries to just toss a cable over the nearest powerline. I've seen pictures of streets in slums where the powerlines just look like spaghetti from all the cables just draped over them.
-jon
After you throw the hook over a line and jab it into the insulation, how do you take it back off? I didn't see the video address this and the shape of it doesn't seem like it'd be easy to get back down?...
check out the Mp3 Garbler I built!
Army? Yes.
Marines? Sure.
The Air Force? I wasn't expecting that!
How far do the Air Force guys get from airplanes and hangars and runways? It seems like they don't really have the same type of "field" that the land based grunts do.
No military should be considered superheroes. They just glorify violence and legalized murder.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
I thought tapping into power lines to steal electricity is illegal. In fact, even using an induction antenna to steal power is illegal. Will the military have a special contract with the power companies to let them do this?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Go to South America. Poor people use them in places like Venezuela and Argentina to steal power for their shanty towns. It's quite common and not a new idea at all. Just don't get caught!
Just grab through the air from overhead power lines.
http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2004/360
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
It's a good thing that they are just tapping in to get free electricity... rather than tapping into networks to get free music downloads, otherwise the U.S. Military could be liable for trillions of dollars.
In most places, even low voltage power lines are 3 phase, that's four wires, all insulated. There is a very-very limited use on this device. Also... if a special ops team is doing such a thing, they would rather climb to reach the wires and make a safe connection.
My other signature is a car
with those who give the orders. Soldiers do. The vast majority (five nines thank you) are the best we have to offer. Why? Because they are willing to do what has to be done regardless of personal costs. I am a bit bias, I did four years back in the eighties, but honestly, these people are special in many ways. Most would never brag, most have core sets of values they really do live up to. They do far more than message board bitchers will ever do.
Look, they aren't perfect, but I respect the least of them more than you.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This seems odd if you ask me. Anytime the US military assaults a populated area the first thing to disappear is the power grid.
Once they hold an area, they could just step into any building and get all the power they need. Who's going to say no?
Seems this is designed to be used for clandestine operations, where they need a fairly substantial amount of power from a power system they know is still operational.
But look at the size of the cable notch and you can see this is to tap into building feed lines (entrance lines), its not big enough for high tension lines, (which generally aren't rubber coated any way). Any line small enough to fit in that notch
Does that mean this is planned for suburban/residential areas or locations where there are building feed lines overhead? Some of the images on the linked page seem to show this (the unshielded cable in the images being for suspension only, and the other two conductors for power).
Yet that kind of entrance is not all that common in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, so one wonders if this isn't for domestic use in disaster relief situations where no one will begrudge them the power.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The article doesn't detail whether this is for tapping power from single phase household drops only, which I assume is the case ... or can it also be used to tap higher voltage lines?
Ron
What you said is not at all untrue considering history. Moreover -- and the military crowd isn't going to like this -- I would hold that most military men are motivated more by self-interest rather than "love of the country" as every military claims. Obviously the US military fights in offense much more often than defense, and you just don't join an organization like that unless you're ok with their agenda. An agenda of offensive fighting doesn't attract people on the basis of "desire to serve" -- it attracts self-interest, from the top of the pyramid all the way down.
However, you will be modded down to insignificance, given that groupthink and popular opinion outpowers the truth every time -- especially when the truth is hard to swallow.
This would only work on the low voltage line between the pole mounted transformer and the building it is connected to. Trying to use it on a transmission line, even a small one in the woods would result in high voltage being fed to the device and likely whoever is holding it. In this case why not plug into an outdoor outlet, or just go inside and borrow the use of an outlet., shelter, etc.
First thing the military does is take out power and other utilities during the first waves of attack, what power lines will be operational when ground forces move in after the air assaults. This is at best useful for special forces that are sneaking around in a country. Not in a situation like say invading like what was done in Iraq.
Most Air Force critters aren't pilots. Plus, Air Force Para-Rescue as well as Forward Air Controllers are specialized grunts who happen to work for the Air Force. The military is full of weird situations like this. For example, the Army operates 119 vessels (we're not talking about inflatable rafts here).
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
A piece of plastic containing a wire with a spike on it is hardly innovative or newsworthy.
I worry about the outcome of a soldier trying to lassoe a high tension wire or compromising the integrity of power lines left exposed to moisture and oxidation as a result of being punctured.
There is also an issue of soldiers breaking local laws by stealing power from wires that don't belong to them or worst of all assuming such energy sources would be available to them to use in the first place.
Each of those three AC wires still has potential relative to ground. They only need to tap into one and use an appropriate transformer.
Heroes don't demand funding for their agenda, with the threat of violence (i.e. locking you in a cage) if you don't comply. That alone rules out any military action (or government action for that matter) from being "heroic".
True heroism is a selfless act of altruism, not a demand for compensation or funding. Let's call a spade a spade: military service is a business, just like any other business.
Why does being a government employee who kills on demand make someone any sort of hero?
They do it in India too. They had a hook at the end of a long pole. With a tiny inverter to power saws and other stuff. They were building a new Hotel.
Once again, Army genius comes up with a half-assed and dangerous solution.
From the article:
"The power lines that run from the street to a house usually consist of one insulated wire that carries electricity to the house, paired with a bare wire that carries electricity away to complete a circuit."
uh, what? I haven't seen any overhead drops that consist of less than two insulated cables and one bare one to carry the split-220 to the typical home, small business, street lamp, etc.
If this device cuts into both insulated wires, there will be fireworks and they will blow any "covert op" they may be indulging in.
There's the wrong way, the right way and the Army way. This is so not the right way.
me. --a by-product of public education
Anyone else see this and get a flashback for Thicknet Vampire taps?
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
Amazing, this will make power cheaper for consumers to harness than solar or wind!
It'd be better and safer to just wrap the line with an induction coil. Most of what they propose powering with it are low power devices and a direct contact induction coil would easily power them just off leakage.
Your tax dollars at work, because in war time there is always electricity flowing in the power lines everywhere. It's not one of the first, if not THE first, thing to go.../sarcasm
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Get Power Anywhere!*
*Service not availble in areas with buried power lines, metal insulated lines, no power lines or knocked out power lines or power lines that are not compatible with the very specifically designed hook...
I want me one of those, for my electric car, seeing as I live near a power station and would be able to tap in directly to the lines to charge my car without paying!!!
My nephew is part of a crew that sets up and maintains a mobile radar installation. He's not often in a base.
see post title.
People have done it here too... we call it... stealing power.
Yes, you can steal power from lines, you can even do it via induction.
Also... inverter? You only use an inverter to go from DC to AC. It was probably a small power transformer.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
On paper, nice concept. But just one minor problem: the power grid's most likely down, or was never built. I served in Iraq in 2006-2007 and again in 2008-2009. Even six years after invading the place, the central grid worked only sporadically. Most Iraqis had portable gasoline-powered generators. Other countries such as Afghanistan or Somalia probably never had a functioning electrical power system (outside of a few capitol cities). I was with the Marines in Iraq. We got by fine with batteries and some small utility generators. The only reason for tapping local power would be to run air conditioning, without which the Air Force is probably out of the fight. Second point is if US soldiers were to tap the local grid for power, guess who would be blamed for every power outage? It would drive unit commanders insane paying damages for spoiled milk every time the power went down. And we would pay to avoid controversy.
That slot looks just wide enough to accidentally snag your finger in. Add a twisting motion... ouch!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"Since soldiers in the field don't always have ready access to an electrical outlet when they need to top up the batteries . . . "
This device works on the wires that run from a pole to a house. Why not just go in the house and use the outlets there? You're an armed soldier, for Christ's sake! Just take the power!
And all of this assumes that the power distribution system is still working in a combat zone?!?
I meant transformer since power lines aren't 220 and the saws they were using were.
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2009/01/26/weekly11-BulletFlight-iPhone-app-aims-for-accuracy-with-military-snipers.html
> I'd like to see how you get two hots and a neutral out of 2 wires.
In the USA we do it like this
Of course it takes a local transformer tap to pull-out a neutral (and if the loads are unbalance you don't really get neutral), but that's how we do it over here (gotta save on that copper wire)...
then say a transformer and not inverter.
Sorry, but you just can't talk bs and come back with "well i was meaning that". It would be like you saying "Every human should be killed" and then saying you meant "Every human should be apple fanboys". sentences not necessarily in that order.
Talk what you mean, not trash. (and what if all science would be written in your style of saying complete bollocks first?)
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
On paper, nice concept. But just one minor problem: the power grid's most likely down, or was never built. I served in Iraq ...
But it should work just fine if the military was suppressing a domestic uprising in the US. B-b
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
murderers _and_ thieves
You are aware of the root of the problem, but your solution is still based on chest-thumping militarism.
A Marine with 34 years of service and 2 Congressional Medals of Honor had the solution to American expeditionary misadventures and he had it back in the 1930s.
"War Is A Racket"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm
[...]the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives[...]
How to smash this racket
[...]conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories[...]and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time[...]get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
gewg_
Fun fact, that's how science works. Except of course they check their sources better. Maybe. You just peer-reviewed his findings.
The issue with these hooks is, that they only work in the US.
Most countries have either several wires (insulated or not) going to the house, or they put their cables under the ground.
I suspect the OP is trailing a coat there and hoping someone will step on it.
Sorry, but you just can't talk bs and come back with "well i was meaning that". It would be like you saying "Every human should be killed" and then saying you meant "Every human should be apple fanboys". sentences not necessarily in that order.
"Every apple fanboy should be killed" would obviously be what was intended.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
All across latin america, in fact. They were doing this at least 14 years ago in nicaragua.