Jesse Lor's most read articles

~5/24/18: I was out fishing with a friend earlier today for a while until we noticed the weather began to turn ugly within a half hour or so after seeing the severe weather warnings on our phones. No kidding-wind blowing dust all around us, distant lightning, and thunder drowning our voices forced us to pack up and head out. Didn't see any trees or branches down, just a lot of swaying and leaves flying around. While driving back, I noticed a number of intersections, traffic lights, and a f…

~1/9/18: Just some questions I've been wondering about for the longest time: What would happen if a "normal open" loop was closed in a circuit and tied the two station transformers together. Would there be any drawbacks in regards to the transformers for having tied in two subs / sources together? Other question: How many subs can a typical 69kv line supply power to? Recently, I've been tracking down some lines around my area to see where they go and I was quite surprised to see a single 6…

~4/7/2020: A video I came across a while back about the co-op's responsibility of maintaining reliable power from the 1960s: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrsMIRQygP0

~5/2/16: Seems that Xcel Energy paid a recent visit to this structure to update some equipment: www.ipernity.com/doc/331527/34174431 I have no clue as to what they did on this structure, but considering its age I hope they didn't replace it with a clamp brace & modern bank. Will keep on the look out to see if anything happens. I wonder if this pole is in possible danger as well since both poles are literally a few spans from each other: www.ipernity.com/doc/331527/34174411

~1/20/16: This has been a question that I've been wondering for a while, but why does one not become "shocked" when in contact with a neutral wire? After searching on the web only to find various answers, I decided to hear from what you guys have to say. I had no idea what the purpose of a neutral was until about two years ago.

~ 12/22/14: Just a vid I came across on Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=440xnCjpnRU

Here's an old vid I found, I think some of you guys might find it interesting: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz6z0xkCK3E

~11/10/14: I guess its time to get ready for the snow covered rooftops, dirty windshields, and icy conditions! As of today, its currently snowing out (even as I type), theres about a good inch that covered most of the ground over here, but the ground hasn't froze...yet. Its probably the "end" of the line construction season for my homemade poles for the year. Maybe if I'm lucky, the ground won't be completely frozen by nextweek.

~8/3/16: I recently assembled my own "homemade" group operated switch out of various pieces of hardware and metal I had lying around. Since this is my first attempt ever at building such, it looks pretty crappy but I'm sure as time progresses I'll find better waves to improve such work. I will upload a photo soon to show what it looks like. I plan on putting the switch on a pole and using a "control pipe" to open / close the switch similar to real life poles.

~11/3/14: Recently, I've been thinking about building a confusing / wtf structure. One of my poles has two down guys and it makes me a little nervous when I see someone driving an ATV near the down guys. I thought about putting in another pole and connecting them with a beam (to eliminate the guys), and adding some sort of "odd" details to it. Maybe I'll make a sketch of what I have in mind later on.

I'm sure everyone remembers that day when they logged onto Flickr and saw more of what they expected. On May 20th (day I saw the new layout) of last year in '13, I remember coming home and seeing all this junk / confussing mess of random photos all over the page. It's hard to believe that it's been nearly a year since most of us fled from our "home site". Anyway I'm still on Flickr uploading photos every few weeks or so. Thanks for stopping by!

When I first started out building my poles with insulators I recently collected I strung a small thin steel wire to use as conductors. I thought it looked nice, when I came to check on my line I noticed weeks later the little steel lines were rusting, I didn't think much of it. When I thought about energizing my lines with power from a solar powered fence charger I thought that the original rusted steel wire wasn't going to do the job. So then I reconductored the line to a copper wire, It was…

~9/25/14: I can't put a number on how many times I've heard people's random guesses on what they think power lines are called. I've had people ask me before "What are those things that you like called? Those poles....uh lines....those towers and thingys. You draw them???". "Or what those strings and...electrical things". "You like those....road thingys or stuff right??" Truth to be told, I love hearing the guesses since its quite funny. This just came to mind and I was wondering about how many…

There has been number of times when I get these "surprises" when I carry out work on my utility poles. A very recent one was when I was working on a ladder (about 10-11' tall) on one of my poles. The ground was a little soft from rain storms the previous night, but I thought I'd be fine. I was on the third step to the top when I froze in shock realizing that one of the ladders legs had sunk into the mud and that I was tipping over on my left hand side. I thought I was going to end up in the mud,…

with IOU and Co-Op systems. Back when I was a youngster, I had no idea what a co-op was and no idea it existed. I always thought utilities everywhere were IOUs, it wasn't until a few years later when I started to explore around the rural areas of Wisconsin. When the family got some property in rural WI I was excited to come along and see the utility system that was there. I noticed that the all the poles looked almost the same, the spacing between the primary and neutral were spaced evenly on e…

I woke up today to find out I was experiencing my first power outage. Apparently there were a couple hundred people without power in my area, there were about 130,000 customers without power in the state according to Xcel Energy during the early hours of the after math of the storm. I heard lots of loud thunder, at some point so loud that I had to cover my ears, raining hard, and strong winds. People in Hudson, Wisconsin were also affected by the thunderstorms. I did not see any damage on the p…

~7/18/15: Anyone else get some severe thunderstorms from last night? We sure did! Thankfully, very little to no damage occurred where I'm at. Also, the reclosers on my neighborhood line did there job so there were no long term outages. However, friends in WI (same area where my "homemade" power poles are at) were not so lucky. There were reports of tornado like winds from last nights storm, which did lead to dozens of downed trees and part of my friends roof completely gone (Fortunately, everyo…

~ 3/13/15: Surprisingly, all the snow here is just about gone. Temperature is in the 60s with clear blue sunny skies, just the way most of us prefer it! I plan on doing some Line Chasing myself soon. Thanks for reading!

~10/31/14 Tomorrow I'll be heading to the Mankato area to pick up a delievery. I don't recall of any times when I had to travel southwest of the Twin Cities, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of lines I'll run into.

~12/13/14: Been a while since I did one of these articles. It's quite a surprise to many of us about how warm this winter has been. The temp. here has been in the 30-40s recently. Much to my surprise, the ground hasn't froze yet, but I'm hoping it will be that way until next weekend since I need to do a pole replacement on my homemade line. Poles breaking and falling over is NOT the type of damage I run into very often. Plus, it's already difficult enough setting one in partly frozen ground.…