Faults producing radiowaves

[HamburgerHelper]

This is kind of a goofy question but is there any reason why I shouldn't be able to hear faults on the transmission system using something like a radio. Lightning strikes are about the same magnitude of current as a good ground fault on our system and I can hear lightning strike on AM.

 

[itsmoked]

You should be able to. Lighting usually is longer and higher which would help propagation but reasonable distances should work.

A problem is usually the amount of data you have to filch thru to find what you care about. I'd expect having to 'listen' for a year to maybe hear one event to be a PITA with little return.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[waross]

There are places around here where there seems to be some type of discharge issue with the distribution lines. The interference increases in volume as I approach the pole where the interference seems to originate.
You may hear burst of static that was caused by an electrical fault, but not be able to identify it or link it to the source.
When driving a car, you may see a lightning bolt somewhere ahead and also hear it on the radio. It is not the current but the steep wave front produced when an arc strikes that causes radio waves. There may be some correlation between the current and the distance that the signal is propagated.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[crshears]

Story time...

During my training to become a power system operator I was rotated through a number of different locations, many of which had lightning detector facilities on site. At one of these, a trick of topography routinely caused the lightning detector to sound when a 125 MVA power transformer about 12 kilometres away was removed from potential by means of its high side disconnect switch.

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]