[BC] Transmitter Safety

[Jon Maguire]

Sid, that is very sad news indeed. Wasn't there another engineer who 
was killed at one of the Needham transmitter sites?
I heard this back in the 70s that someone had come in contact with 
the HV supply of a Klystron and died.

The closest I have come was at the base matching network of one of 
the WCOP (now WTTT) towers. I was taking a measurement.
There was a loose copper shield hanging near the on the output of the 
matching network at the antenna feed, and I reached out to move it out of
the way and brushed by some component that was hot. OUCHAWAWA!! It 
was winter, and I was wearing a glove, but I got a nasty
burn on my right index finger (still have the scar). My Dad (also 
electrical engineer/career Navy Comms guy RIP) always taught me to
have the utmost respect for 2 things.... electricity and gasoline.

I also remember at the old Squantum Street WMEX transmitter site that 
the RCA BTA-50 transmitter had a problem where the door shorting
contacts would, over time,  close the gap.  At first the arc would 
start with modulation peaks, and work its way to to eventually BANG and
shutdown!! Switch to the 5KW back and adjust them. I had Max Richmond 
on the phone screaming at me more than once!!

Jon W1MNK Brandon FL USA  ***Celebrating 30 years in IT with IBM 4/24/08!!***

Sid Schweiger wrote:
>Some of you may remember Jim Howard (now, I believe, deceased), the 
>former CE of WJIB/Boston (the 96.9 FM signal, not the WJIB currently 
>owned by Bob Bittner at 740 AM).  Jim received a painful lesson, 
>which he would relate to anyone who asked him, about having to call 
>someone's wife to deliver the worst news possible.  He used to work 
>at the WRUL/WNYW shortwave site at Scituate MA, years before I first 
>met him, when one of his co-workers, working alone late at night and 
>presumably on too little sleep, made a fatal error.  Jim was the one 
>who found him the next morning, and had to call the man's wife.