Overhead v.s. Underground Power

[jon]

Now that I'm starting to seriously look at DX'ing at home, I noticed at least one antenna site that talked about how much RF noise is created by overhead power lines running by your home. And made the claim that underground power lines pretty much eliminate the problem.

Any truth to that?

[Mike Cleaver]

My experience is there is much less interference from underground lines but it can depend on many things.
How deep the lines go, how close to your listening position, if they are encased in a concrete tunnel, etc.,etc.
Putting cables underground eliminates many problems, the effects of weather, unsightliness, etc.
I've always wondered why cities don't build a concrete tunnel under all the streets to carry electricity, water, sewer, gas, telephone, cable tv, etc.
This would eliminate chopping up streets to work on said utilities because the tunnels could be accessed at various points along the route to make repairs and changes and workers could safely work on the utilities in question.

[Jack Bennest]

Good idea Mike - but I believe it would be the cost issue.

I know when you see new pavement your mind registers it and then
five minutes later it sees the first cut for a water service and you
says - "does that make much sense?"

The cut and cover of say five new services would not equal the cost of a man high
tunnel even thou a smaller "man on a stomach car" size might work but I don't think
so. Pavement last last maybe 30-50 years if well constructed - how many cuts
do you think would be made in that time.

I will ask a couple of a civic engineers. They might look at my funny.

[jon]

Thankfully, the economics of combining power, cable and telephone wiring underground here in Alberta is a little better. Winter weather, mainly snow and ice, and summer lightning are frequent enough that Alberta has seen a huge savings in manpower handling outages, not to mention the cost savings to public and private organizations who have a much more reliable power, telephone and cable system. And everyone benefits from the hugely reduced risk of lightning-induced power surges on all three services.

It is not universal here, as many of the older areas still have overhead power/telephone/cable lines. But AGT, the TELUS component that serviced everywhere but Edmonton, went ahead even without Power company cooperation, and numbered their customers in the high 90's, percent-wise, who had underground telephone feeds. In fact, I used to support the "Pole System" for AGT for a short while. I think there were a couple hundred poles in Calgary, and that was it for the whole province (outside of Edmonton, where AGT did not provide service). Yes, farms were even served by underground wiring, both on the street and up the driveway.