Tick tracer freaks out property maint. man

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K8MHZ

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
Today I went up north to help install a generator in the middle of BFE, Michigan. I rode up with the property maitenance guy (a higher class of handy man with upper end clientle) and on the way back we hear a disturbing sound....the sound of one of my tool bags flipping upside down in the back the the Nissan 4WD we were in after an otherwise uneventful tight curve negotiation.

At the first chance to pull over safely we did and as we opened the rear hatch my tools started spewing down upon the frozen tundra the locals call a roadside. As I was gathering my now freezing tools from the ice and putting them back in my bag, I kept hearing a 'beep'. "It's my tick tracer", said Chuck, the maint. dude and my chauffer for the day. He pulled it from his bag and it was beeping wildy like he had it on the business side of a piece of live Romex.

He had one that had no on and off feature. (It supposedly turned itself on an off...unlike mine, it has an actual switch.) It was beeping like there was no tommorow. He pulled it out of his bag and held it in his hand. It was still going crazy. Then he notices a smirk on my face. I point straight up. We were parked directly underneath a 315,000 volt transmission line.

He was shocked (pun intended) that the power lines could set off his tracer. He was even more amazed at how far we had to be from the lines before the tracer would stop indicating.

I got a good laugh out of it. Chuck doesn't know what to think. He did indicate that he wanted to get clear of the lines ASAP, though.

:D
 
Same thing happened to my co workeer and I. We were using a death stick(voltage pen) and it kept reading voltage no mater what we did. After a minute or two and we had turned everything off we realized that the high voltage power lines about 100 + yards away were setting it off.
 
K8MHZ said:
Today I went up north to help install a generator in the middle of BFE, Michigan. I rode up with the property maitenance guy (a higher class of handy man with upper end clientle) and on the way back we hear a disturbing sound....the sound of one of my tool bags flipping upside down in the back the the Nissan 4WD we were in after an otherwise uneventful tight curve negotiation.

At the first chance to pull over safely we did and as we opened the rear hatch my tools started spewing down upon the frozen tundra the locals call a roadside. As I was gathering my now freezing tools from the ice and putting them back in my bag, I kept hearing a 'beep'. "It's my tick tracer", said Chuck, the maint. dude and my chauffer for the day. He pulled it from his bag and it was beeping wildy like he had it on the business side of a piece of live Romex.

He had one that had no on and off feature. (It supposedly turned itself on an off...unlike mine, it has an actual switch.) It was beeping like there was no tommorow. He pulled it out of his bag and held it in his hand. It was still going crazy. Then he notices a smirk on my face. I point straight up. We were parked directly underneath a 315,000 volt transmission line.

He was shocked (pun intended) that the power lines could set off his tracer. He was even more amazed at how far we had to be from the lines before the tracer would stop indicating.

I got a good laugh out of it. Chuck doesn't know what to think. He did indicate that he wanted to get clear of the lines ASAP, though.

:D
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I had mine turn on in my luggage on a flight to OK a few months after the bombings, they paged me while I was waiting for my bags to the luggage handling area where my bag was surrounded by sandbags, they asked a few questions and had me go get it (They had thier hands on thier guns), I pull out this flashing/beeping thing and they about freaked out. Took me an hour to show them what it was. Lesson learned, remove batteries from tic tracer when traveling.
 
zog said:
I had mine turn on in my luggage on a flight to OK a few months after the bombings, they paged me while I was waiting for my bags to the luggage handling area where my bag was surrounded by sandbags, they asked a few questions and had me go get it (They had thier hands on thier guns), I pull out this flashing/beeping thing and they about freaked out. Took me an hour to show them what it was. Lesson learned, remove batteries from tic tracer when traveling.
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You can't say 'tic' in an airport, much less pull out flashy-beepy things! :grin:
 
zog said:
I was way hung over too, that made it worse
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At least you were sober.

We got stopped for a suspected "dangerous" carry-on item showing up on x-ray. Turns out it was a crystal figurine we did not want damaged in the cargo hold. The leaded crystal looked solid on the x-ray and they thought it was some kind of dagger.
 
The first time my kids saw it they rubbed it on everything and checked all the recceps they could reach. One night they would not quiet down and upon checking them, they had both cats under the covers and the voltage tester stuck to one cat's collar lighting up with the static, giggling their heads off.
 
I know that wire is dead But__

I know that wire is dead But__

I tested and retested a wire somerime hot sometimes not??? If I was standing on a ext cord my tester would go off no matter which wire I was holding it next to. I use the GB tester with the sensitivity adjustment.
 
The newest Ideal tic has a silence button. It is the best tic in it's class that I have found.

The newest Klein, IMO is junk. Have had 3. The button on all of them broke.
 
marti smith said:
The first time my kids saw it they rubbed it on everything and checked all the recceps they could reach. One night they would not quiet down and upon checking them, they had both cats under the covers and the voltage tester stuck to one cat's collar lighting up with the static, giggling their heads off.
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I have kids and cats, so I like your story.

But looking at where you are from, I'm sure your tic goes off all the time, for no apparent reason :)
 
zog said:
I had mine turn on in my luggage on a flight to OK a few months after the bombings, they paged me while I was waiting for my bags to the luggage handling area where my bag was surrounded by sandbags, they asked a few questions and had me go get it (They had thier hands on thier guns), I pull out this flashing/beeping thing and they about freaked out. Took me an hour to show them what it was. Lesson learned, remove batteries from tic tracer when traveling.
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LMAO That is really funny.
 
zog said:
I had mine turn on in my luggage on a flight to OK a few months after the bombings, they paged me while I was waiting for my bags to the luggage handling area where my bag was surrounded by sandbags, they asked a few questions and had me go get it (They had thier hands on thier guns), I pull out this flashing/beeping thing and they about freaked out. Took me an hour to show them what it was. Lesson learned, remove batteries from tic tracer when traveling.
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...They had thier hands on thier guns...

I wonder why? Like if it is a suicide bomber, would holding a gun on him stop him....duh...:)
 
zog said:
I had mine turn on in my luggage on a flight to OK a few months after the bombings, they paged me while I was waiting for my bags to the luggage handling area where my bag was surrounded by sandbags, they asked a few questions and had me go get it (They had thier hands on thier guns), I pull out this flashing/beeping thing and they about freaked out. Took me an hour to show them what it was. Lesson learned, remove batteries from tic tracer when traveling.
Click to expand...

Several years ago, Michigan sent one of their OSHA inspectors to a class accross the country. He was going to need his safety gear for part of the class. His steel toed boots were in his luggage. Unfortunately, he had inspected a plant a day or two before, that made chemicals for explosives. Security dogs keyed on his luggage, and the security folks came looking for him. By the time he figured out what had happened, explained it to the security folks, and convinced them to call his boss at home on a Sunday afetrnoon, his flight had long since departed. He took it in good humor, but I don't think he'll ever forget the looks on the faces of some of the other passengers in the waiting area when security took him away.
 
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