I am not an engineer but have visited with some concerning this issue. Anyone with 129 volts at the outlets should call their electric supply company and have it checked after they check the calibration of their meter. Pretty much the standard today is 120 volts at your outlets. In my previous location which was rural and quite a way from a substation, I had what I thought was low voltage so I called the company. The guy measured it at 119 volts and stated that it would vary between 115 and 120 on a regular basis. Someone who has 129 probably lives nears a capacitor bank or in an area of heavy usage during peak days. That can be changed and should be if it is truly that high. There are taps on the house transformer to adjust for that.
The electric man also stated that variations of 10% were normal and expected. At 115 volts nominal that is a 11.5 volt variation which equipment manufacturers should have taken into account in the design of the equipment. On the higher end equipment, taps on the primary of the power transformer were provided to address the issue. My B&W 5100B has a switch for 107 and 117 volt mains. So with 117 plus the high variation that makes it about the 129 someone mentioned. These variations should be temporary and if I read 125 or more volts on my main regularly, I would check the calibration of my equipment first then contact the electric company. If we read our manuals voltage chart, we find that voltage tolerances are 10% there. Add that to any variations of the supply and you can have pretty high voltage. Good equipment and tube manufacturers took this into account. 73 Jim de W5JO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Todd Bigelow - PS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I'm pretty much with you on this one, Brett - although I can see a problem for > equipment that is older than the 115v standard running at 129V! Yipers! > > I'm in the middle of Vermont using the largest power company in the state, CVPS. > I have a plug-in AC meter which I use to monitor the line voltage. It stays > right around 115-117v. I don't recall ever seeing it drop below 112 or go up to > or over 120. Another ham I know lives north of me maybe 35 miles and has a rural > electric company. His power tends to run low. > > > Todd/'Boomer' KA1KAQ > > _______________________________________________ > AMRadio mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio >
