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Hey Guys
I recently discovered a power tower near my house.
I admit i know nothing about this type of object.
What I would like to know is if it's jumpable, chance of getting shocked etc.
don't worry i have cropped the pictures so you can't identifly the area
here are the links

http://i149.photobucket.com/...rbird/IMG_8385-1.jpg

http://i149.photobucket.com/...harbird/IMG_8382.jpg

please pm me with any advice, tips

thanks
Gary

Don't jump it Mupp you're gonna fry your fucking balls off!

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/electric_shock/page8_em.htm

That site says something about explaining to kids not to climb or play around power towers. At least send Joe up if you aren't sure.. haha jk.

I am not a high-voltage specialist, so I cannot say for sure if it is safe to go up there. But, from the pictures you have provided, it looks like a high-tension line. It will not carry the usual 120 or 380 V, but will likely carry at least several kilovolts. See how long the insulators are? They are trying to prevent electricity from arcing over to the tower. The lines themselves are attached to the insulators, but if you look closely, you can see shorter conductors (attached near the end of the insulator) going through the platform area and onto the other side, to the other set of lines to complete the connection. It would definitely be a good idea to avoid those. I may be wrong, but it looks like there is a secondary set of insulators holding up a set of conductive bars that actually carry the power to the other side. These appear to go through the area where the platform is, so definitely don't touch that.

Also, at high voltages, there can be a possibility of power arcing through the air, from the conductors and onto you, if you are within sufficient proximity to the lines. The chances of this happening can depend on several factors, humidity being one. So you probably don't even want to be near the parts carrying current, or you will become a very crispy critter.

if there is arcing you can hear it and at night you can see and hear arching if you don't watch what you grabbing you can fry. if that help any, there is lots other safe object to jump I think

I'm supposed to say, never touch anything like that cuz your chances of badness happening is far to high ... my real answer is in your message box.

Hey Gary,

We have a tower thats fairly similer in design, been jumped lots

Stay off it in the rain etc ... not had any hassle with it

I have been told that high power cables will arc upto 3 meters ... not sure how true this is

Flipper

Find another object would be my advice
Base is already risky, the fact is if your Dead before you even jump it takes the fun out of it

High-voltage stuff can arc far. I'd say 3 meters is a possibility. For one thing, look at how far apart the wires are hung. They are that far apart for several reasons (wind, etc) but arcing is definitely a concern.

Also, consider where the arcing is happening. If you have two wires at a similar voltage and phase angle (and good separation) then you probably won't get arcing. It is a completely different story with a 50kV line and a support platform sitting nicely at ground - there is a much higher potential difference and a higher possibility of an arc.

So, one scary possibility is an arc from the wire, to an unfortunate base jumper, to the support platform. While the wire itself is far enough away from the platform, the distance (well, impedance really) from wire to person and person to platform is small enough to allow an arc.

By counting the number of resistors you can calculate what the engineers designed the top voltage to be in the system... Now, the wires could have something considerably less than that.

(My aunt, as a cartographer, used to map powerlines for the utility company and could, on a quick glance, tell what voltage the system was designed for.)

I used to think that - "if that wire is three feet from the power pole, I should be fine if I am three feet away too".... However, these systems often discharge energy to the atmosphere (you can hear the sparks on the lines outside of my office) - and you don't want to be in the middle of that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tzga6qAaBA will give you an idea of how much energy is in the system - just to bring the helicopter to "potential" has a lot of sparking energy.

our local power tower is pretty godamn zappy at exit, but nothing terrible.at exit:you must be touching the skin of your hand to the tower, this will ensure no zaps.you can test this by tapping your hand on the steel on your way out to exit.always duck down if your beneath an upper set of HTPL. saw a buddy get his taint zapped on climbout when he let go with his hand.weird. of the six different power towers ive been on,only our local one"delivers the juice". your photos are sweet ,real nice exit.

it's also been jumped in the rain. it's 500,000 V if I remember right. it has larger/more insulators than the one in the pic so gary should be fine.

Ther are a number of objects similar over here which have been jumped on nearly a weekly basis over the last 20 years or so with no reported incidents of arcing to a jumper...yet! They carry up to about 400, 000 volts so like flipper said, stay well away if the conditions are wet or humid.

Andy
Base#229

Rule of thumb: An arc jump over a distance from 0,39 inch per 1000V, so for 500000V the critical minimum distance is aprox. 16,4 foot!!

its been jumped in the rain,snow,extreme hometown humidity of 100%,dry air ,dark air, broad daylight air. can only see an arc at night if the jumper is particularly bitchy or winey.so in all situations over here, the thing is always juicy. Ive actually seen current running through my pilot chute.