The following page is a “how not to” on how to simply enter, rob, and pillage the stock and equipment within the fenced-in area at your leisure with absolutely no detection. Fill your sack with any and any of the stuff inside the “so-called” high voltage security fence. High voltage it may be, but security it definitely is not.
Pro’s and Con’s & DO’s and DON’T’s
A security fence
should do more than just look lethal. When advertised and used as security, it
should
provide security. More than looks alone, it really should actually provide
security. You would think, but the vast majority of security fences simply look
lethal, but are so easy to bypass, that you shouldn’t even get your clothes
dirty.
The most popular security fence design for human exclusion is a 20 strand/wire
reaching 10 feet in height with the horizontal strands spaced at 6 inches
apart. (15.25 centimeters). The fence should be at least 2 feet higher than
most chain link fences.. However, as we probed and tested different fences
around, we find that other than that 10 foot 20 wire similarity, there is a big
difference in installed
configuration and operation. These differences in installed configuration make
a big difference in the
actual security provided. Please refer to the sketches as shown below.
Make no mistake, most security companies try hard to make their security systems to detect and not provide false alarms. This primarily includes office security systems. However, we found that in the high voltage perimeter fence sector, the opposite is true. The security fences that we surveyed were “look good” fences only, and not designed for security applications. These were designed for minimal cost of installation and minimal alarms and NOT to secure the perimeter. The most popular ones that we surveyed, one could walk through without getting their pants even dusty.
Facts.
The same high
voltage equipment that is used to keep people out also uses the same high
voltage
equipment used to keep animals in. The ONLY difference between fences is the
actual construction, the
configuration, number and spacing of the conductors and the way the fence wires
are interconnected.
A high voltage fence will not kill anybody, and in the 125 plus years that high
voltage fencing has been used there has never been a single fatality or injury
from this high voltage. Actually the electric used on high voltage fencing is
the same as, but only half the voltage which is firing the spark plugs used on
you
vehicle. So to sum up, farm fences, gasoline engines, and high voltage electric
security fences all utilize the same type of electric pulses.
Once you have picked out a place to rob and ransack for “stuff”, the next step is to determine if the yard has one of those cheap rental fences that are so easy to walk through. You have to invest in a fence voltage meter. This fence voltage meter is plus/minus $40-$50 in US dollars. That is it and you are ready to go.
Pick a site you would like to pillage, like any salvage yard or similar location and they have lots of good stuff. Pick a time when the yard is essentially deserted and go to it.
Go up to the fence and plug the ground wire on your fence meter into the ground. Most meters have a long cord that gets plugged into the ground and is rightfully called the ground wire. Then I always start at the bottom wire. Touch that wire with the probe end of your meter. It will read either essentially zero or several thousand volts. On the fences that we checked, the bottom three wires read zero. So those three wire can be gathered together and laid on the ground, stomped on and help down with a board if desired. It pays to keep track which wire carry high voltage and which wires are grounded.
It is an easy thing to determine just how your fence is inter-connected. You will need to purchase or borrow a fence voltage meter. This is a special meter built to measure a typical voltage pulse. Your security fence use the same type of voltage source that is used for livestock containment and is usually 12 volt battery driven system. This high voltage pulse is 0.000005 to 0.000010 (5 to 10 micro-seconds in duration which makes it non-lethal and about half the voltage on your car spark plug.
Using your fence voltage meter, you would start at the bottom wire on your fence. On most fences you will have zero volts (ground) or 5 to 10 kilo-volts. All the zero or grounded wires should be connected together, while all the high voltage wire are all connected in series. This is so, so that a single short or cut of the high voltage wire anywhere between the high voltage source and the end of the line voltage sensor will register and monitor the fence voltage
I am not sure what the theory is, but you would have to be blind staggering drunk to get shocked or try to break into a yard like that. What we have found on many of the rental fences is, that the bottom 3 wires are grounded, and the rest and either high voltage with maybe one or two wire that are floating. The one or two floaters do not matter as they are floating and will not cause any alarm, as shown below.
1. Obsolete fence connection.jpg … click on the picture to enlarge
As we travel around the country, the following types of installations are very common and prevail among the rental fences. We can only guess that the cheapness of the materials and design used are a driving factor. We have to assume that the rental company doesn’t want any false alarms and the money saved with this style of fence installation more than pays for the few actual robberies that occur,
The construction of the fences that we surveyed consisted of the bottom three wires which are tied together and connected to earth ground which effectively reduces many false alarms from weeds at the sacrifice of security. However the wire in this space will not give a shock and is easily crawled through. But wait, we can do better than that. The fence has 20 wires total, and the bottom 3 wires are ground and the top 17 wires are all hot. Since they are all hot wires with the same voltage potential, the can be easily bunched together.
These high voltage wires either bundled or just touching each other will never cause an alarm., as shown in the illustration below will never go into alarm, which makes it super easy to simply walk through by bending over a little. In this example the fence will never gives an alarm.
2. Obsolete configuation.jpg … click on the picture to enlarge
This configuration of high voltage electric fence is worse than useless as it deceives the owner and gives him a false sense of security. This will really truly cost you if you believe the hype and BS that they sell it with.
We see lots of yards protected by this design type of high voltage fence installation. The only way a company would purchase or rent this inferior designed fence at an inflated price would have be some unseen or unknown motivation for your company to spend, and keep spending a ton of money for a product that is so obviously inferior as to be virtually useless and also keep buying it year after year. The number of high voltage fences of this caliber that we see installed around the lower 48 states can only be explained by some reason other than value or effectiveness.
The fences that we looked at in other countries around the world and which were never available for rent, and when asked the cost, using U.S. materials, was about one third the cost of a U.S. installed price. The actual ongoing operating costs for a well construction high voltage fence anywhere in the world were only a few hundred dollars a year.
To be truly effective, the high voltage perimeter fencing needs to be more than just scary looking, It has to provide a hurtful electrical shock to any intruder. A well designed high voltage electric fence can be essentially impossible to breach without setting of an alarm, and therefore provide the perimeter protection you require.
If one connected all the wires or adjacent wires at same voltage potential, This is the easiest and least expensive fence to install. However, while that is the easiest fence to install and is also the easiest fence to penetrate without setting off any alarm. The abandoned fence section that we looked at, had the fence wires interconnected as shown in sketch 1. Essentially, this type offence is a “feel good only” fence for the property owner and not a true barrier to an intruder.