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So that's why electricity is so expensive.


walshie
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Western Power have a pole in the corner of my garden in a little wooded area bringing electricity to my house, then going on to next door.

 

A man with a clipboard came round to say it was about time they cut back some of the branches as they were touching the power lines.

 

A week later the same man came round with a slip of paper for me to sign agreeing to let them do this.

 

A few weeks later a survey team with all the climbing gear arrived and spent the day assessing what was needed, here and next door.

 

Last week a helicopter came and did an aerial survey. Came all the way from Bristol. It was here a while, hovering, flying sideways and skimming the treetops.

 

Yesterday not one, but 2 vans turned up. One had 2 guys with chainsaws and the other van had 2 guys without chainsaws but it was towing a wood chipper. Why they couldn't put the wood chipper on the back of the first van I'm not sure.

 

Shortly after arriving there was a knock at the door. "We can't cut those. They're touching the power lines."

 

Arrrghh! :crazy:

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That's nothing, I've worked for a couple of major universities for nearly two decades and I shudder to think where their money goes.

 

A few years back a mate who works for Astra Zeneca told me they built a 40 million pound building then relocated the staff and labs abroad before even using it.

Edited by kyska
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I have access to a drone, its unbelievable what it can do, and the image quality is frightening, it will go off on its own, and its almost impossible to crash,

 

I like them, playing back live footage onto a big screen, of where you live from the air is totally outstanding.

 

Which one do you have / recommend?

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dji phantom 3 standard.

 

my only issue, is battery life, about 25mins for a flight, which is probably fine for most applications, and 1 and a half hour charge.

 

So you really need 2 batteries, other than that, it is outstanding. The speed it takes off and the maneouvreability is crazy.

Was looking at the Mavic the other day- fine looking machine, just need to convince myself that I need it/will use it enough.

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Was looking at Phantom 4 pro. It also comes back when it thinks the power is too low and just enough to get back to take off point. Click and it will follow whatever it was you clicked on. If they did thermal for it I would be flying it around the fields at night looking for charlie!!

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these drones at about 400 to 500 quid, are fantastic, but you can go into the thousands and get incredible flight times, faster craft etc,

 

if you put it in gps mode, you just send it off so you can barely see it, watch the screen, and just press the home button and it comes back and more or less lands at your feet on its own.

 

Amazon know which way the wind is blowing, regarding drone deliveries in their business.

 

Have you seen the emergency defibrillator drone? look it up, its incredible.

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Must admit the helicopte sounds a bit excessive, but many electical companies will have them so if there is a storm and lines are down the heli can survey miles and miles in no time to find where the trees/lines are down.

 

Sounds like the surveyor's made a mess of it, should off been obvious if lines were touching, i take it it is the old 4 bare cables rather than the modern thick ABC insulate cable.

For the climbing teams that sounds about normal, usually work in 3/4 man teams, for H&S always need 2 climbers on job so usually have 2 groundy's to tidy up round bottom of trees and chip the branches

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Was looking at Phantom 4 pro. It also comes back when it thinks the power is too low and just enough to get back to take off point. Click and it will follow whatever it was you clicked on. If they did thermal for it I would be flying it around the fields at night looking for charlie!!

 

I have a Typhoon H and they do an IR camera but I cant justify the cost yet. Great bit of kit and 4k video and ability to switch between video & photos in flight including 360 panoramics etc. Great way to view permissions. You can get surprisingly close to rabbits & deer before they get spooked if you fly at 80m+

 

Back on topic. My brother bought the upstairs flat a number of years ago and got the local power distribution guys in to put a new consumer unit in and wire the upstairs rooms into 1 board. Long story short the old lady who had passed away recently was already wired in! Needless to say he has not noticed any change in his bill despite the additional expansion!! He didn't pursue it any further flat was going via probate etc and he saw the funny side. Looked like it was never separated when he bought the downstairs flat.

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these drones at about 400 to 500 quid, are fantastic, but you can go into the thousands and get incredible flight times, faster craft etc,

 

if you put it in gps mode, you just send it off so you can barely see it, watch the screen, and just press the home button and it comes back and more or less lands at your feet on its own.

 

Amazon know which way the wind is blowing, regarding drone deliveries in their business.

 

Have you seen the emergency defibrillator drone? look it up, its incredible.

 

What's the kind of payload weight these things can carry while maintaining a decent flight time?

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