[AT] Shhhh! Quiet==electrical

[Larry Goss]

Low voltage is not uncommon around underground mines, Ed.  When I moved to West Virginia in 1971, it was not uncommon for the voltage to drop to the point that our TV set couldn't show a picture.  I put a recording voltmeter on the line for a couple of weeks to see what was happening.  The whole town was networked so there was a "220 volt" grid everywhere that houses tapped into whereever they wanted.  No one had individual step-down transformers.  When the mine machinery kicked in at the beginning of the morning shift, the voltage on the grid would drop and each leg would be below 90 volts.  It would slowly come back to nearly normal by quitting time every day.

My kids were in pre-school at the time.  The voltage drop kicked television viewing in the head and they routinely missed Sesame Street.  The house load was unbalanced, and I found I could get more reliable use of the television set by changing the load assignment in the breaker box.  Of course, when the miners returned home at night, the machinery was off, the voltage came back up, and everybody enjoyed prime-time viewing.

Such is life in the Kanawha valley.

Larry
 



----- Original Message -----
From: Edchainsaw at aol.com
Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 21:46
Subject: Re: [AT] Shhhh! Quiet==electrical
To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com

> 
> here in  rual VIGO county Indiana   most of 
> the  time  we can get a  118v  
> per leg  but I have seen it   as low as  105 
> on some days..  and as High as 
> 128...   
>  
>  
>  
> In a message dated 12/29/2009 12:05:19 P.M. Eastern Standard 
> Time,  
> at-request at lists.antique-tractor.com writes:
> 
> Re: [AT]  Shhhh! Quiet==electrical
> 
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