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Re: Pole Transformers

Ralph.

In my experience, its best not to even mention Tesla Coils when talking to
the service engineers. 

Create a plausable reason for wanting a pig and just keep dialing around.
Also, never ever argue about the safety issues associated with pig
ownership and always make doubly sure that you understand all the technical
details associated with pigs. Remember, you are asking the engineer to go
out of his way to help you.

Although I live in another country (New Zealand), my method of getting a
pig should still be relevant to you. I rang a number of utilities in my
geographic area (a radius of 400km) and told the engineers that I was a
university student (which I actually was at the time) and that I was
looking for a transformer to complete a research project. If the engineer
couldn't help, I'd ask for a name or telephone number of someone else who
might be able to help me.

After speaking to about 15 different people, I had some good leads. It
turned out that the rural utilities were nearly all in the process of
consolodating all of the sub 15kVA pigs on their respective networks. I
eventually found a utility that would sell me as many 5kVA (-at-11kV) pigs as
I wanted for approx $100USD a piece. I believed this was too much to pay
(as the pigs were being sold for scrap anyway).

My prudence payed off. The next day I spoke to an lineman down country who
was sympathetic to my request. When I asked him how much he wanted for the
unit, he asked that I make a donation to charity and send him the receipt!
I offered to travel to his yard to pick up the pig but he countered with an
extraordinary offer. He had the pig loaded onto a company truck that was
already scheduled to travel to my area. Three days later I drove about
20kms to a yard to pick up the pig. They even used their gantry crane to
load the pig onto my trailer.

So for a total price of $25US I purchased a pig and had it delivered :-)


Be polite and persistent and you can't really go wrong,

Gavin Hubbard


P.S. If there are any kiwi coilers out there who are seriously interested
in getting a pig for TC work, please contact me off-list. No under-18 year
olds please.




The first was willing to sell me as many pigs as I wanted for about $100USD
a pe

>If you can say so without getting the guy from your pub scv co strung up, 
>what's the name of your company? Where? Here, in S. Central Indiana, I have 
>Cinergy. After 5-10
>minutes of trying to get past the gum-chewing high school kid, I have
finally 
>met the 
>engineer/management type who can give an intelligent answer: NO. The word 
>here is that because of possible legal consequences, absolutely under no 
>circumstances can he sell any of the junk he has piled in the junk yard.
They 
>say that anything as large or 
>expensive as a capacitor or a pole pig is inventoried and accounted for on a 
>one-in-one out basis. All that stuff eventually goes to the big bone yard in 
>Indianapolis. That's the
>story. I would like to know how you do it?
>
>Happy day,
>Ralph Zekelman
>
>
>