XPost: uk.tech.broadcast, uk.tech.digital-tv, uk.rec.audio   
   XPost: sci.electronics.repair   
   From: gsm@mendelson.com   
      
   Eiron wrote:   
   >   
   > Can I just mention another example of European Union lunacy?   
   > Voltage is standardized at 230v +- a fudge factor so that the UK   
   > can keep to 240v and the rest of Europe can keep 220v with no plans   
   > for any country to adopt 230v. Now that is dumb!   
      
   No, it makes perfect sense. A long time ago England was 240 volts and   
   continental Europe was 220 volts, both 50Hz. I don't know when this   
   was standrdized up until WWII France used 120 volt 60Hz AC.   
      
   The UK used several systems, and a friend of mine who traveled to London   
   in the 1970's found that there were four different electrical systems in use   
   in various parts of the city. By that time they had been standardized to   
   240 volts 50Hz, but the older plugs and lightbulbs (different ones for   
   different systems) remained.   
      
   Appliances were sold without plugs well into the 1990s.   
      
   Still, you had to buy an appliance for 220 volts or 240 volts. Devices used   
   in both places had a switch on the back.   
      
   The new EU standard of 230 volts is not one of exactly 230 volts, like the   
   old 220 or 240 ones were, it's a requirment that an electrical device sold in   
   the EU can operate without adjustment from 220-240 volts (more like 210-250)   
      
   There were plans of slowly shifting everyone in the EU to 230 volts so there   
   could be a shared electical grid, but with the economic problems currently   
   hapening, it would be too much to predict the lights will stay on at all.   
   :-)   
      
   Geoff.   
      
   --   
   Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM   
   My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count. :-(   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)