Talk:Transmission tower

message: Machine translation of http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freileitungsmast
* That would explain why the article assumes we know what a "strainer" and the "fir tree" towers are. What a crap text. Ninuor 05:34, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: An electricity pylon is an electricity wire tower elevates cables off the ground.
Lee M 18:55, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening heading 

message: How tall is an averaged sized electricty pylon. Dontchya think that that would be useful info? Blue Laser (talk) 00:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this info would also be useful surely it would be one of the main facts about these structures  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.84.27 (talk) 07:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Height information with a reference has been added to the intro, which has been expanded. Truthanado (talk) 01:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Clearance for the voltage, and allowance for sag at high temperatures (which varies with span).  Variable so there's no "average sized" tower. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:57, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  How tall... 

message: The official term in British English is "Electricity pylon", not simply "Pylon", and in North American usage, the word "Pylon" refers unequivocally to a traffic cone. Pylon in my opinion should lead to Pylon (disambiguation). -m.nelson (talk) 22:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why does [[Pylon]] redirect here? 

message: There are some balls on the pylon. What is it? and why they are there?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.136.101.197 (talk) 11:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pylon 

message: I don't know of any better place to state this than here.
It seems to me that these articles have little to no sources, namely ones that state why they are givien the names they're given ("fir tree pylon" what?).  Also, since they're all stubs, and all machine translated from the German Wikipedia, AND they've hardly been touched in over five years, I'm proposing merging them all into one article.  I'd like to hear opinions on a move like this.
Also, I have been working on what this page would look like if it were done.  See here for the page I've put together so far.  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 13:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. Merge away. I've tagged a bunch recently. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Types of pylons articles should be one single article 

message: So I've been performing several Google searches over the past few days for the name of... this structure, and so far I have found:
* Search "transmission tower".  I get sources from companies of many different countries.  The miss rate on that name is low; I got a few radio towers, but nothing else other than this structure.  Most of them will say "transmission tower" and place "pylon" in parentheses, but not mention it again.  See here—mind you, this is for all the way out in China—and here for a news article from the Northeastern United States, for examples.   The first result that I got for technical information is on the first page.  Search in Pictures, and the same thing pretty much happens.
* Search "pylon".  For the towers, I get few results out of Europe, some pages heavily concentrated on the United Kingdom, and Wikipedia mirrors.  A lot of pages are on Egyptian structures and Cleopatra, a rock band, technical pages on traffic cones (lawl).  Past the tenth page, I still cannot find any technical information.  For the image search, however, I'm also quickly peppered with traffic cones, bridge towers, shopping center signs, all sorts of things.
* Search "electricity pylon".  Again, on the first page, I got mostly sources from the UK, including Flash Bristow's Pylon Appreciation Society.  I also got Wikipedia mirrors.  Lots of them.  I also got pages for hobbyists and news sources (from the UK).  First technical source came about on the fifth page (and for the UK).  However, Image Search wins in bringing up nothing but this structure; this is expected.
So far, I am concluding here that "pylon" and "electricity pylon" is a European thing, especially a United Kingdom thing, as no one else addresses them readily as "pylons".  Most of the world at large will say "transmission tower" and instantly be referring to... this structure.  Therefore, in the name alone, we have a globalization issue.  I say change it.A disambiguation page (Transmission tower (disambiguation)) can be made to differentiate between other things with this name, and a hatnote at the top directing people to that article if they are actually looking for radio towers.  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 21:57, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Pylons/towers are used not only for electricity transmission lines but also for electricity distribution lines. In this context, name "transmission tower" may be someway limited. Beagel (talk) 22:29, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: While this is true (with some carrying subtransmission lines as well), I am attempting to look at this from a more global standpoint, which the original posters really have not done.  Since most peoples call them "transmission towers", and it's an official industry term, it shouldn't matter if the name isn't etymologically perfect.  Otherwise, "bathroom" would need a naming consideration, if you consider public bathrooms where you're not allowed to take a bath/cannot take a bath due to no bathtub.  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 23:12, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

text:  Do the UK utilities call a single piece of wood a "pole" or a "pylon"?  If the latter is the case, then the articles are irreconciable.  If the former (single-element support is a "pole", multiple pieces welded/bolted/nailed together are a "pylon" (or what I would call a "tower")), then we could use "utility pole" for all things pole-related, and "electricity pylon" for the more complex structures. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have to look into the pole part; might take a while.  Though, even if this is the case, why would the specific UK colloquialism make it impossible to harmonize the articles?  That's one of the big questions I'm attempting to raise, and part of the reason I placed the Globalize tag.  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 03:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

text: Addendum:  So far I have not been able to find anything in the industry calling them "pylons".  I searched "british utility company poles" and I'm getting a lot of sources calling 'em wood poles between the Wiki mirrors, like this one.  (As an aside, there's this site too; can't tell if I should call it a colloquial source and it hasn't really been updated in years either.)I then replaced "poles" with "wood pylons" and redid the search; it completely scattered and I didn't find any matches.  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 04:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

text: IEEE Standard 100 doesn't use the word "pylon" at all (took a long time to search the .PDF edition). Newnes Electrical Engineer's Reference Book, published in the UK, doesn't use the word "pylon" at all in Chapter 30 "Overhead Lines", but does refer in passing to "electricty pylon" in Chapter 37 showing a fib[er|re] cable between towers (pylons). The outfit advertising on the Web for "pole removal" and "pylon removal" shows pictures of single columns supporting wires for the first use, and composite structures with a broad base for "pylon" (towers).  From what I've read on the Web, if a "pole" fell on a wedding tent and a "pylon" got blown up by protesters, the usages in India are consistent (single column vs. broad base composite structure). The "pylon spotters" fan site is looking at composite structures (towers), not poles. So I think the usage is pretty clearly that a pole's a pole the (English-speaking) world round, but what British electrical engineers may formally descibe as a "tower" is called in the press or casual use "electricity pylon".  Does this suggest a rename of this article is in order, absolutely with a redirect from "electricity pylon" ? --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:22, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: After some time, I've come to accept the usage of the term "pylon".  However, I'm still far in favor of "transmission tower".  If that's the British tech term and the world at large uses it in technical applications, while only the UK and pockets of Europe use "pylon" at... all, then it would seem that that is the far more common term.  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 19:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Interestingly some people in Australia (including myself) call them "transmission tower" but in the English Dictionary (Australian) deems it to be "pylon". Quote from the Collins English Dictionary (p. 220) "pylon n steel tower-like structure supporting electrical cables.", here I though pylons were something that a bridge or pier/wharf is supported on. I still prefer "transmission tower". Bidgee (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

text:  I can accept that "transmission tower" is the most common international term and hence the most appropriate article name.  However, I would dispute the claim that "pylon" is a British colloquialism.  It gets used in pretty much any and all discussion of the subject (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15293918), which I would say makes it the standard (British) English term.  If Transmission tower is only or primarily used by those in the electrical industry, that would arguably make that term jargon.  The Oxford dictionary gives this as the primary meaning of the word "pylon", with no claim of it being colloquial http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pylon . Wardog (talk) 11:25, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name "transmission tower" beats "pylon" by quite a bit 

message: I noticed a recent comment in recent edits to the article, asking if the "alternatives to pylons" section was appropriate for the article.  About a year ago, I added a similar section to the Utility pole article, but it was extremely truncated quickly.  Now... Placing aboveground power lines tends to be a very controversial practice, mostly due to the support structures; most news sources tend to call out the "telephone poles" and "ugly towers" and "steel monsters", and power companies do their best to reduce the visual impact of their steel lattice towers as it is.  So, I figured it'd be appropriate to have an alternatives section which addresses aspects of this controversy.(Currently, in my opinion, it is the best written section in this thing, and not because I contributed to it; my words have been changed around and sources added by... someone.)So, anyone:  Thoughts?  Comments?  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 15:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Drat; I postponed an answer but now must rush it out before this page slips off my watchlist.  Alternatives are usually handled not in the main choice article but in the general article which can better balance the various advantages and disadvantages.  Thus it is with alternative bicycle frames and better with alternative digital cameras and there's even a whole article about digital vs film photography and right now I can't think of better examples but they exist.  (You can tell I'm being hasty; I'm loading too many words with too little content.)  That's why the section should be transferred to electric power transmission with only a sentence or three here in the (still misnamed) pylon article.  Oh, and furthermore if it were not to go to the transmission article it would belong in the overhead power article.  Sorry; gotta spit some more Wikipedia edits and then trot down from Hell's Kitchen to Greenwich Village on a densely populated island which has no latticework power towers and hardly any utility poles even. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I see your point.  I suppose that, in that case, what we have here (which seems to be mostly about underground cables in general) should be placed there.  However... I think something should still go here, just because the towers are considered visual pollution by so many.  Perhaps... we should build a section based on "visual pollution" as opposed to "alternatives to overhead power", centering around people's arguments for the towers specifically, and what the power companies are doing to lessen their impact?  It was mentioned somewhere that as lattice towers needed replacement, monopolar tubular steel poles (though unsourced) were being employed these days for sake of lessening visual impact and used as a minimalist structure.  —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 00:52, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

text: Editors should read the article and follow the links before making changes.  Had I done that, I would have immediately eliminated the entire section leaving just a sentence and a link, rather than merely trim away the majority of each of the three paragraphs of that section.  Then I actually did follow the link to Undergrounding and saw that it's exactly the place where this information belongs.  This steels my resolve to delete the section and replace it with a sentence, or perhaps half a sentence, near the beginning of the article with a link to Undergrounding.  If someone thinks a referenced paragraph about lessening the visual impact of lines of ugly steel monsters marching across the landscape would be a good thing, or even a whole section, go ahead.  Besides green paint and tubular steel it will also provide an alternate base to link to the Undergrounding article. Jim.henderson (talk) 04:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Alternatives" section:  Appropriate? 

message: I could have overviewed it, but didnt find any remark regarding the hazards presented to conservation (see, for example http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1613292 )
In fact, moder pylons can (and often are) properly insulated to avoid such issues (I guess that it comes at a higher cost, though) but myself not being an expert, I invite you guys to ellaborate, if any of you knows about this. It is a major conservation issue, especially when it comes to birds of prey.MOUNTOLIVE  fedeli alla linea 14:34, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wildlife issues 

message: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:power%3Dtower#Typical_heights has some heights in Taiwan. Jidanni (talk) 17:10, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  More height examples 

message: Mention some in countries color and warning lights are a function of height. Jidanni (talk) 20:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colors as a function of height