I do agree, if wire is hot there is either a problem or......
Following is a true story.
One year my Ham Radio club ask me to help by providing power for the Field Day station.. So I parked the house out in the middle of a field, dropped around 130 feet of 30 amp cord to a octo-let in one of the operating locations, we then dropped 12ga to the second position, both stations were running 100 watt transmitters (About 1.5 amps draw) plus a laptop (perhaps 1 amp) and a lamp, (1 amp max) so we are drawing less than 10 amps on a 30 amp cord.. No overload there at all, heck 18ga would have done the job and I'm running 8,
When I went to roll up the cord Sunday afternoon it was so hot I had to wear gloves.
That is.. Till I got to the part of the cord which was in the shade of my awning, that was COLD to the touch.. Yes, the source of all heat is the SUN and that is what heated my cord.
