Stupid things I'm Gong to do...
Along a similar vein to stupid things we've done is things we will do.
The weather forecast is not good.
Johnson City Weather Advisories - Weather Warnings & Watches for Johnson City, TN
However, a camp out has been planned for several months by the State of Franklin Homebrew Club and I'm planning on going.
I was planning on going Friday, but with the weather forecast as it is, I figure I should go Thursday to get set up before the worst weather hits.
I'll be camping along the Nolichucky river, so If you don't hear from me again, I probably got swept away.
Along a similar vein to stupid things we've done is things we will do.
The weather forecast is not good.
Johnson City Weather Advisories - Weather Warnings & Watches for Johnson City, TN
However, a camp out has been planned for several months by the State of Franklin Homebrew Club and I'm planning on going.
I was planning on going Friday, but with the weather forecast as it is, I figure I should go Thursday to get set up before the worst weather hits.
I'll be camping along the Nolichucky river, so If you don't hear from me again, I probably got swept away.
I found these pictures while looking for something else. The year was 1977. The movie "Smokey and the Bandit" had hit the big screen and everybody had to have a CB radio. Soon everybody had to have an illegal (non)linear amplifier to boost it's power. I made a good bit of money offering to fix CB radios for a friend's shop for $10 each. I could fix 15 to 30 of those things on a Sunday when the shop was closed and there were no distractions.
I had helped my friend install some military surplus equipment in his car that put nearly a kilowatt of RF into the antenna on the back. The B&W picture shows me holding up a 4 foot fluorescent tube while he keys the transmitter.
I get a call from him asking if I could help him hook up a surplus linear amplifier in the shop. He is offering me $100 to come take a look. I show up and find a Gates HFL-3000 shortwave linear amplifier that requires 100 milliwatts of drive to produce 3 KILOWATTS of output power from 1 MHz to 30 MHz. There is just one small problem. The Gates requires 208 volts 3 phase at about 40 amps. The 3 phase power supply schematic is hanging on the top of the rack. The building has 240 volt single phase 100 Amp service, and the biggest breaker in the panel is 20 amps.
I tell him to find a 7000 volt transformer capable of at least 1 amp with a 240 volt primary and then call me back. I expected that to be the end of the story. He calls me back about a week later with the required transformer. I show up with another friend (the guy with the cigarette) who can help swap out some 200 pound transformers.
I wired in the new transformer using 4 of the 6 diodes in the original 3 phase bridge rectifier. We had connected all the "small stuff" up to a standard 240 volt outlet that was previously used by an industrial sewing machine. I wired the primary of the big transformer to two poles of the original contactor, and fed the contactor with a pair of automotive jumper cables connected to an unused 240 volt 20 amp circuit in the breaker box. We all stood back and powered up the beast. There was no KABOOM. We dialed in a frequency and prepared for liftoff. When we pressed the test button the breaker feeding the new transformer popped. Now what????? Maybe 20 amps is not enough?
What does a 25 year old George do? He simply moves the jumper cables to the live side of the tripped breaker. After all it's still protected by the building's 100 amp main breaker, right?
This time the test button evoked a loud BANG, and total darkness. Silence.....WTF happened? Something big blew, and that tripped the 100 amp breaker. We sat motionless for what seemed like eternity until somebody thought to open the rollup door to let light in.
OK, there has a BIG SHORT in this thing, there are no obvious fried parts, so how would you go about finding it? Maybe with an ohmmeter? Remove all connections to the breaker panel except for the big fat ground wire, and break out the Simpson 260.....
I connected the black lead of the Simpson to chassis ground and started poking around on the rectifier panel when there was a big spark and the Simpson 260 just EXPLODED!!!! WTF! I had been all over the insides of this thing with my bare hands and a grounded metal panel in my lap and I found enough electricity to blow a meter into pieces....TIME TO GO HOME!!!!!
We returned the next day with another meter and a high voltage probe. The first thing I probed was the big Frankenstein capacitor that is across the HV supply.....WTF, there is about 5000 volts in the cap despite 3 X 1 foot long resistors wired in series across the cap. After discharging Frankenstein and assuring ourselves that there wasn't any more hidden electricity in this thing, I set out to find the problem. One of the rectifier diodes was shorted, and the BANG we heard when powering up with the 100 amp breaker was the companion diode blowing its guts out the back of its plastic case. The other 4 diodes seemed good. One of the 3 big resistors connected to Frankie was open, so we verified that every other resistor in the power supply was good and procured 3 replacement bleeders before even thinking about trying this monster again.
My friend and owner of the monster had fetched a 30 amp dual breaker for the panel and we had two #10 wires running across the floor from the panel to the contactor which at least appeared far safer that 2 sets of automotive jumper cables connected end to end.
With 4 believed to be good diodes and 3 shiny new resistors in the power supply we fired the monster up again. All went smoothly without incident, a for about as long as it took me to pack up my tools and attempt to get out of the building, the beast was pumping over 3 kilowatts of RF into the antenna. Before I could leave it shut down. The transmitter would not attempt to key up.
I wondered if the antenna was to blame since CB antennas were only designed to eat 5 watts, not 3 KILOWATTS. Sure enough they had a very expensive high gain "Turner Ultra Kicker" antenna with a coaxial phasing harness that had melted. A $29 Radio Shack antenna could eat 3 KW and did for several years until the CB craze was over and the business closed down.
Every time the transmitter was keyed that pair of #10 wires running across the floor jumped, sometimes they barely moved, sometimes it was an inch or more!
I had helped my friend install some military surplus equipment in his car that put nearly a kilowatt of RF into the antenna on the back. The B&W picture shows me holding up a 4 foot fluorescent tube while he keys the transmitter.
I get a call from him asking if I could help him hook up a surplus linear amplifier in the shop. He is offering me $100 to come take a look. I show up and find a Gates HFL-3000 shortwave linear amplifier that requires 100 milliwatts of drive to produce 3 KILOWATTS of output power from 1 MHz to 30 MHz. There is just one small problem. The Gates requires 208 volts 3 phase at about 40 amps. The 3 phase power supply schematic is hanging on the top of the rack. The building has 240 volt single phase 100 Amp service, and the biggest breaker in the panel is 20 amps.
I tell him to find a 7000 volt transformer capable of at least 1 amp with a 240 volt primary and then call me back. I expected that to be the end of the story. He calls me back about a week later with the required transformer. I show up with another friend (the guy with the cigarette) who can help swap out some 200 pound transformers.
I wired in the new transformer using 4 of the 6 diodes in the original 3 phase bridge rectifier. We had connected all the "small stuff" up to a standard 240 volt outlet that was previously used by an industrial sewing machine. I wired the primary of the big transformer to two poles of the original contactor, and fed the contactor with a pair of automotive jumper cables connected to an unused 240 volt 20 amp circuit in the breaker box. We all stood back and powered up the beast. There was no KABOOM. We dialed in a frequency and prepared for liftoff. When we pressed the test button the breaker feeding the new transformer popped. Now what????? Maybe 20 amps is not enough?
What does a 25 year old George do? He simply moves the jumper cables to the live side of the tripped breaker. After all it's still protected by the building's 100 amp main breaker, right?
This time the test button evoked a loud BANG, and total darkness. Silence.....WTF happened? Something big blew, and that tripped the 100 amp breaker. We sat motionless for what seemed like eternity until somebody thought to open the rollup door to let light in.
OK, there has a BIG SHORT in this thing, there are no obvious fried parts, so how would you go about finding it? Maybe with an ohmmeter? Remove all connections to the breaker panel except for the big fat ground wire, and break out the Simpson 260.....
I connected the black lead of the Simpson to chassis ground and started poking around on the rectifier panel when there was a big spark and the Simpson 260 just EXPLODED!!!! WTF! I had been all over the insides of this thing with my bare hands and a grounded metal panel in my lap and I found enough electricity to blow a meter into pieces....TIME TO GO HOME!!!!!
We returned the next day with another meter and a high voltage probe. The first thing I probed was the big Frankenstein capacitor that is across the HV supply.....WTF, there is about 5000 volts in the cap despite 3 X 1 foot long resistors wired in series across the cap. After discharging Frankenstein and assuring ourselves that there wasn't any more hidden electricity in this thing, I set out to find the problem. One of the rectifier diodes was shorted, and the BANG we heard when powering up with the 100 amp breaker was the companion diode blowing its guts out the back of its plastic case. The other 4 diodes seemed good. One of the 3 big resistors connected to Frankie was open, so we verified that every other resistor in the power supply was good and procured 3 replacement bleeders before even thinking about trying this monster again.
My friend and owner of the monster had fetched a 30 amp dual breaker for the panel and we had two #10 wires running across the floor from the panel to the contactor which at least appeared far safer that 2 sets of automotive jumper cables connected end to end.
With 4 believed to be good diodes and 3 shiny new resistors in the power supply we fired the monster up again. All went smoothly without incident, a for about as long as it took me to pack up my tools and attempt to get out of the building, the beast was pumping over 3 kilowatts of RF into the antenna. Before I could leave it shut down. The transmitter would not attempt to key up.
I wondered if the antenna was to blame since CB antennas were only designed to eat 5 watts, not 3 KILOWATTS. Sure enough they had a very expensive high gain "Turner Ultra Kicker" antenna with a coaxial phasing harness that had melted. A $29 Radio Shack antenna could eat 3 KW and did for several years until the CB craze was over and the business closed down.
Every time the transmitter was keyed that pair of #10 wires running across the floor jumped, sometimes they barely moved, sometimes it was an inch or more!
Attachments
That explains those pants.
Great story - I had a couple on deck but they're pretty wimpy by comparison, heh.
Many years ago i used to vist some hippy friends who turned their backs on the 'rat race ' ,left London with all their worldly possessions packed into a bright red double decker bus and set up camp on a small plot of land they had bought at the top of a welsh mountain.
Once or twice a year they would throw a huge party where it was traditional to consume vast quantities of ' mushroom soup '.
One time i was the designated ' cook ' so , already only about 25 % on planet Earth due to various ' herbs ' i had been sampling , i wandered off to the kitchen of the beautiful log cabin they had constucted and began the preparation.
Once the ' soup ' was simmering on the gas stove ,beginning to feel a little lonely ,i left it and went off in search of company with the intention of sharing a smoke by which time the 'meal ' should be about ready for consumption.
Sometime later , maybe 20 minutes , i suddenly remembered i had responsibilities and ran back to the cabin only to find that the pot had boiled over and had extinguished the gas.
Without thinking i took my lighter out and attempted to relight the burner.
I remember an almighty ' WOOOMFH ' the sound of breaking glass and a sheet of multicoloured flame surrounding my head................
last time i ever got invited to those parties
Once or twice a year they would throw a huge party where it was traditional to consume vast quantities of ' mushroom soup '.
One time i was the designated ' cook ' so , already only about 25 % on planet Earth due to various ' herbs ' i had been sampling , i wandered off to the kitchen of the beautiful log cabin they had constucted and began the preparation.
Once the ' soup ' was simmering on the gas stove ,beginning to feel a little lonely ,i left it and went off in search of company with the intention of sharing a smoke by which time the 'meal ' should be about ready for consumption.
Sometime later , maybe 20 minutes , i suddenly remembered i had responsibilities and ran back to the cabin only to find that the pot had boiled over and had extinguished the gas.
Without thinking i took my lighter out and attempted to relight the burner.
I remember an almighty ' WOOOMFH ' the sound of breaking glass and a sheet of multicoloured flame surrounding my head................
last time i ever got invited to those parties
And the 1974 Plymouth Road Runner. Unfortunately it wound up full of bullet holes in the process of a messy divorce.
Disco and cocaine were already starting to take over south Florida. At least I never got messed up in that crowd. Mr. Pants, well......not so lucky. I haven't seen him since about 1980.
The infamous shootout between the Cocaine Cowboys and the FBI (FBI lost, seriously outgunned) took place in the middle of US-1 about a mile from this location. On a different occasion the Cocaine Cowboys shot up the Dadeland Mall, where I took guitar lessons about 10 years earlier.
Bits of it are 
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