Neutral connection at pole, safety.

[Fred B]

Saw a different situation today and wondering safety of installation. POCO neutral at service pole has jumper from connection to the service drop over to the guide wire for pole. No insulator on guide wire prior to reachable elevations. Anchor on pole is insulated at connecting point for the overhead, but this is bypassed by the jumper to the guide wire. Will get photo later but never saw such a thing. Xfer is one pole over and no primaries coming to this pole in question.
Is this normal installation? Is there a safety concern for voltage potential on the guide wire? Under normal or only extraordinary conditions?

 

[infinity]

Done the same way here. The guy wire is connected to the neutral.

 

[4x4dually]

That seems awful odd to me. I'll have to look around on my way home today. Not sure if I've every noticed that around here before.

 

[LarryFine]

It sounds normal to me. The MGN is grounded and bonded to everything.

 

[Fred B]

So if this is normal, doesn't this create a multiple N/G bonding points? The guide wire is grounded to earth via the anchor.
Wouldn't this also create a hazzard that wouldn't exist otherwise if the POCO neutral between the service point and the xfer was lost?
Might I also assume(?) that if a short was to occur onto the POCO neutral, it being "grounded" via guide wire, it should trip the xfer breaker?
Should the guide wire be protected from contact within reach so if it was to become energized it wouldn't subject a person to the energized wire or would the above prevent or limit that?

This last question is a result of a case study on the OSHA test that a telcom lineman was exposed to a energized guide wire that the insulator was below the telcom wires and grounded out thru him, killing him. Or would my third question cover that potential?

 

[texie]

Perfectly normal for POCO wiring. All metallic items, such a guy wires have to be bonded to their MGN system and is required by the NESC. Obviously the prevent metallic items from becoming energized potentially kill someone. In many big cities inadvertently energized metallic objects have become such a problem that some POCOs have crews whose job it is to look for energized objects.

 

[LarryFine]

Ir's really no more dangerous than touching a meter base.

 

[Hv&Lv]

MANY years ago there were guy insulators installed. We used to call them “Johnny balls”
back in the early 80s we rode around and installed a jumper across them to bond everything to N.
we still bond all guy wires to the N.

johnny ball guy wire - Google Search

 

[Fred B]

MANY years ago there were guy insulators installed. We used to call them “Johnny balls”
back in the early 80s we rode around and installed a jumper across them to bond everything to N.
we still bond all guy wires to the N.

johnny ball guy wire - Google Search

Would such have prevented the telcom incident referenced in the OSHA training? Primary dropped onto guide wire with insulator lower than the telcom lines killing the telcom worker that made contact with the grounded telcom and the back of hand touched the guide wire. The report said he was aware of being electrocuted for a full 15 seconds. They originally found him when the POCO went looking for the cause of an outage. He was still on the pole in work position. The feeling was that the primary may had been in contact with the guide wire an extended period at least since a storm a while before hand.

 

[Hv&Lv]

Would such have prevented the telcom incident referenced in the OSHA training? Primary dropped onto guide wire with insulator lower than the telcom lines killing the telcom worker that made contact with the grounded telcom and the back of hand touched the guide wire. The report said he was aware of being electrocuted for a full 15 seconds. They originally found him when the POCO went looking for the cause of an outage. He was still on the pole in work position. The feeling was that the primary may had been in contact with the guide wire an extended period at least since a storm a while before hand.

No. I haven’t read the report but I think I have the just of the situation.
The insulator would have insulted the line from ground and energized the line. The pole hardware would get hot and eventually the pole will catch on fire at the hardware.
Without the insulator the guy wire would be grounded and it would have knocked the line out quickly.