The effects you describe have been observed by me.
Not the measurement oddity though which set me thinking.
First the standing voltage. This is why in New Zealand we have a 3 wire
system.
Phase, neutral and a seperate earth. In Holland we do not have a seperate
earth. They regard neutral as safe and cannot recall anyone having been
killed by it.
The measurement oddity is most interesting. This means that we are not
dealing with a pure A.C. This appears to be a directional A.C or may be
pulsed D.C. or a mixture of both. I recall having seen some oscilloscope
pattern of a spike followed by a very faint trace as flat as a pancake.
Never owned one though as in my radio days you flew by the seat of your pants.
However dare I mention him again !! Chancey Britten (see Jim's page where I
found the description of the patent with the promise of further information
when it came to hand ! Patent is not available on computer ! His patent was
given to a power company,) made use of free power by means of a T.V. type
antenna coupled to a coil tightly wound on a copper rod and tuned with an
old radio.
Perhaps he also found this oddity but in those days THERE WAS NO T.V. so
did he find something funny and worked this into his free house supply. It
does not mention him being a radio ham but perhaps he was an early
experimenter with marconi equipment.
During the war years, I constructed a radio from old plug in coils (basket
weave) which had three tunable stages, arial, r.f. and i.f as seperate
circuits and you had to really work to receive a station. This would have
been the type available in his days. I was only a kid then and knew nothing
really and cannot even remember how it was put together other then to be
told many years later that it should never have worked.
I cannot get this idea out of my head and you bringing this oddity up will
set me really going. Perhaps some others are happy to do some measurements
on their arials and check. It may be due to some effect from the T.V.
circuitry but have a feeling that this may just have something to do with
an earth resonance locking in a one way pattern.For the measurements of his
arial it may pay to check Bruce Cathie's ideal equations for magnetic
resonance.
Onwards Christian soldiers !AND ALL MEN to the pumps.~!! Who knows we may
all start generating power properly shortly and to hades with all the
transistorised, gadgetry which needs brains to execute plus a lot of cash.
A bit of pipe and wire costs nothing much.
Greetings and thanks for that bit of info.
Ren Berghuis