[BC] My near-death experience

[WBRadiolists at aol.com]

In a message dated 03/10/2009 7:30:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
glen.kippel at gmail.com writes:

> Moral of the story!  When you stick your hand in a live transmitter, keep
>  the other hand in your pocket!  If I hadn't followed that rule, I might not
>  be here. 

WOW!! My closest brush with severe electrical injury was with a microwave 
oven transformer that I was (then) planning to use in a transmitter of homebrew 
design. While testing to see how warm it was getting, I placed my hand on it. 
Apparently, there was a small spot on the windings where the insulation was 
damaged... and ZZZZAPPP!!!

I flipped over backwards, landing rather hard, with a very painful jolt!! My 
hand was quite numb for about 5 minutes... frightening!

Praise the LORD you are not only OK, but alive to tell about it!!

The next most painful/scary jolt I got, was from the tuning wheel in the 
Harris transmitter. The whole wheel was plastic... or so I thought! Unbeknownst to 
me, the shaft came through the end... and ZAP!! Some blackeing under the skin 
of my thumb, and a very odd burning sensation through my arm accompanied the 
jolt. Getting hit with 5kw of 1500Khz ain't fun!

In my 20 years, that was the worst injury I ever got at WFIF.

Willie...