Induced power from nearby lines??

D.E.Bishop wrote:
At one time the Los Angeles DOT was considering storing our mast arm traffic sighal/light standards in a DW&P right away under power lines. We found that the standards(really just long tapered pipes) got very hot when stored there and the crane operator qualified for hazard pay for working there. We moved them to another storage yard as did the Street Lighting Bur.

Really felt funny to be there, hair on my arm stood upright and looked like it was vibrating.

In re-reading the OPs description I can see there is more then one elephant in the room. Normally we hear of of these experiences where the RV owner feels and measures a voltage from the RV frame to EARTH Ground. This appears NOT to be the case.

There is no question the presence of "heat" illustrates an "induced" voltage in the light standards. BUT, I do not think a voltage measurement from one end to the other end of a given light standard could produce as much as 15 VAC

For example, in theory, lets assume a 50 foot piece of 0000 AWG wire rated at 225 AMPS. In order to induce 225 AMPS in the wire the end to end VAC would be only about 0.6 VAC. The power dissipated in the wire would be about 125 VA which would heat the wire. The 0.6 VAC would have a very small (heat generating) source impedance.

So, it is feasible to having an induced voltage generate currents in the frame members of the OPs RV AND feel the "mechanical" effects of same.

BUT, to read a voltage of 15VAC with a 10 MegOhm VOM is most likely a voltage generated by a capacitative voltage divider having a very large (harmless) source impedance as opposed 15 VAC with a small (heat generating) source impedence. The latter, using our example, would be 15VAC x 225A or 3375 VA which is about 3x a small space heater.