The poles supplying my rural property just have one phase of 12kV on them, so 
even if SCE was willing to provide 3ø service to me, I bet it would be 
*expensive* to get the whole line upgraded to 3ø service all the way up to the 
last pole with all three phases present. I think that's probably within a mile 
or so, but that's still a bunch of poles to be upgraded. I use a rotary phase 
converter to feed my milling machine and lathe. If all three phases were on the 
pole already, I probably would have asked about getting 3ø service when I built 
on my property. But with just one phase on the poles, I didn't bother asking.

They did just replace those overhead wires and some poles for fire prevention, 
and in the process they put in a whole great big pole-mounted switch that can 
be flipped from ground level just for my service disconnect, and another one 
for a neighbor's disconnect. It looks like they installed a regular 3ø 
disconnect switch, but only two of the wires are present and one switch pole is 
not connected. My service transitions from overhead to buried at that pole, and 
is buried for the last 100' or so to my ground-mounted transformer.

Two of the poles they replaced were in the easement just on the other side of 
my property line. The contractors were happy with my cooperation in giving them 
access to my property so they could put trucks on both sides of the fence line. 
I also handed out 15 60mm ammo cans from my stash, since I like contractors on 
my property to be happy. So, they conveniently forgot to take the two old 45' 
poles they replaced with them at the end of the day, and I won't have to buy a 
new ham radio tower after all. ;)

I am seriously lusting after that VAX-11/780 system on eBay, but I just don't 
have the available indoor space for it, or a big enough pile of cash to buy it 
and then spend enough to give it a good home. I'm glad that it's not in 
southern California, because if it was within an hour or two of driving I don't 
think I'd be able to resist the temptation. I do have my nice little 11/730 
already. I'm eying the UNIBUS expansion bus from that seller to add to my 730, 
but I think should leave it available for the buyer of that 780.

-- 
Mark J. Blair <n...@nf6x.net>
Blog:    https://www.nf6x.net
Git:     https://gitlab.com/users/NF6X/groups
HECnet:  DOGPAK::MBLAIR
Twitter: @nf6x


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