Earth Battery Beneath Power Lines

[ZathEros]

I agree there could be lot of controversy here.
Twenty years ago the power companies spent a lot of money to produce expert testimony in several cases where people who lived near power lines were suing for damages for being stricken with cancer. They believed the cancer was from the AC power radiated from the HV power lines near their homes. Ultimately the expert testimony convince the jury that there was NO power leaking from the lines and every thing was safe. We all know that this is not true. Power can be scavenged that is radiating from ac power lines. It needs to be the really High voltage ones though. If you were to set up a 1 strand  electric fence along a length of power line  with the wire suspended on insulators and a large ground rod driven to the earth at one end, you will get usable power between the wire and the ground rod.  The length of the wire determines voltage and the diameter  determines current.
What you have built is a very large air core transformer- very lossy but effective.
How could you be stealing power if they have proven in court that they are not radiating any power???
A bit of a rub for the utilities.

To quote Pirate "I am bombarded with cell tower waves yet if I receive them, it is against the law."

This is a misconception the big corporations wants everyone to believe.
The truth of the matter is the radio spectrum is owned by the the people, at least here in the USA.
The FCC law basically says that- The spectrum is auctioned (Leased) off in slices. and if someone wants to transmit a secure signal it is up to the transmitter to make it secure. If someone detects and recieves the signal it is not the FCC's problem. Is is after all Public airwaves.
That is why Dish is peeing its pants with some of the FTA satellite crowd, they have full dish service for free.
If you live near big microwave transmission towers you can easily light strings of Christmas lights using a simple loop and diode detector.

My 2 cents-

[czimborbryan]

OK, so all I would have to do is set up a long heavy gauge copper wire under an electric line and use this as the hot wire in a circuit?

What if I set up a hundred of these around the same power lines, would the power be compounded in voltage and amps?

That said, I would have to be careful not to touch those wires  -  ZAP!

* OK, if trees receive radio signals, can a tree be tapped for the energy?

[Pirate88179]

OK, if trees receive radio signals, can a tree be tapped for the energy?

Yes, a few years ago in our Earth battery topic, I read about tapping trees for electricity and did a few experiments which are documented over there.

If memory serves, I was able to get about 1 volts or so from the single tree in my front yard.  The thing that amazed me which I do remember exactly is that my tree was negative.  I impressed and confused a technician friend of mine by showing him this.  I held the minus probe to my tree array and stuck the positive probe from my DMM into the ground and it showed the energy on the meter.  The ground was positive.  He said that ground ALWAYS had to be negative and this could not be. But it was.  He even checked it himself. Very cool to see. 

Bill

[czimborbryan]

Why would a tree be negative? 

Maybe it was on top of a gold seem or something...

[czimborbryan]

Is it possible for the tree to be acting as a transmitter?