Mildly Interesting

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Why do the cables ONLY vibrate between these two poles? (youtu.be)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/mildlyinteresting

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I've seen this phenomenon many times over the years, while walking the dog out behind our house. The cables wiggle between these two particular power poles, but NOT between the adjacent poles (or any others, along this pole line). There is no wind, no earthquakes, no herds of animals or large vehicles/machinery anywhere nearby when this is happening. I honestly have no idea why this happens sometimes. Thoughts? I mean, sure, it's probably ghosts, right? But any other explanation would be appreciated...

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[–] Revered_Beard 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For what it's worth: I counted about 85 or 86 "clicks" in 10 seconds. It's a loud click followed by a quieter click, like as if it's oscillating towards and away from you. The sound of the click itself is loudest at about 2.6 khz - whether that is simply the sound of friction, or some sort of electrical phenomenon, I don't know.

The fuzzy area at the bottom half of the spectrogram is the dull roar of distant wind. The clicks themselves show up as spikes, and the intense colors on the right are from where the voice starts speaking. The dark band above 10K is just the data lost from audio compression.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Well, I can say definitively that I know what is making that clicking sound. It's hard to see since the cable is in silhouette, but there are silver-colored spirals wound around the cable, and the sound is made by the plastic sheathing of the black cable wobbling inside of those metal spirals. The spirals are made of aluminum, I'm pretty sure. Those spirals are put there to stiffen the the hanging cable, and appear on the hanging cable between every set of poles (not just these, that are wiggling). There are two spirals mounted on each cable between the poles. I assume the spirals are mounted there to provide damping, just in case the wind does cause the cable hanging between the poles to swing too much. But, there was no wind blowing when I shot this video (Dec 5, 2023). The voice you hear is mine, just speculating on what might be causing the oscillating cable...