ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Broken cable head (UK)

These were the standard cables when installed several decades ago. You'll still see plenty in service here, but often looking rather tatty now, as with this one!


Welcome back Martin. Yes, just in case there is any confusion the lower cables are all telephone. In fact the line from the support ring going off to the right in the first photo is the drop to my house.

The little estate where I live probably has a higher proportion of cabling still overhead than in many areas, although with this part of Norfolk being quite rural, there are plenty of places where you can find telephone cables running below LV power.



I was wondering for a moment where might have 240/415 and 33kV on the same poles!

Different voltage power lines on the same poles are certainly very rare in the U.K. compared to, say, North America. Most times 11kV and 240/415V only meet on the same pole where the transformer is located.

Again though, out here in the sticks there are a few exceptions. There's a place a few miles away where 11kV and 240V share a few spans. The lines cross the main road, and there's a 1-ph transformer on one side which feeds a house on that side and back across to another house on the opposite side. It is fairly unusual though; I'll have to try and get some pics next time I'm over that way.



Possibly at one time, but there have never been any the 11 years I've been here -- Until now!

It's common in New Zealand to find single and double circuit 33, 22 and 11 kV above 230 / 400 Volts.
Then also the telecom wires share the same pole.

In Wairau Valley, North Shore, there is even 110 kV above 11 kV above 230/400 Volts.

Crikey Ray,
You fellas up north sure know how to get your money's worth out of a power pole.

Common here in USA as well. Cable TV lines are usually run along the same poles, along with 120/240v secondaries and 2400/7200/12470v primaries.

Here's a rather unusual arrangement for England. Cables crossing at all angles, and the rearmost pole has a multi-pair telephone cable anchored above the 240V lines:



Actually, the pole in the foreground of this picture is noteworthy as well. Old telephone poles like this with cross arms and porcelain insulators are becoming quite rare now.

I know a short run (maybe 2km) in Austria which is still bare wires on telegraph style poles, 2 lines I think. All other phnoe lines are multiwire cable by now. This one seems to be the feed to a very remote furniture factory out in the sticks.

Ragnar, that bought back some memories! On vacation at an aunt's house in the early fifties, out in the countryside with my cousins listening to those wires singing in the wind. We used to put an ear to the pole and imagine we could hear what folks were saying on the phone!

Alan

You can still see a lot of these old poles here out in the middle of some country towns here, with the same bare hard-drawn copper wire on them that was put on them the day they were installed, years ago.

See here:

HV & LV on same poles

As mentioned here, EDF was out here again a couple of days ago to a call from my next-door-but-one neighbor about flickering lights and brown-outs. Apparently the house across the road has had similar problems, although I've not noticed anything more and neither has my immediate neighbor the other side.

Thinking it might be a problem on one phase, I actually spent a half hour one evening tracing all the service drops and sure enough, it emerged that the two affected houses are both on blue phase, while I'm on red.

It seems also that the engineer who came out to do the temporary lashup (I didn't get to speak to him) reported that the cable head was "quite warm," so it's looking very much like there might be a bad connection on blue phase in there.

Still no sign of the team to do the proper repair yet, but with what I know now I'll be keeping a close look at the top of that pole!