Antennas (and Grounds!)
Rick Lloyd (AA4W)
on
May 3, 2004
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When I was about 9 my Father (K8ZZJ) gave me one of those little crystal sets shaped like a Rocket. It had an alligator clip on the antenna lead and worked well when clipped to the finger-stop of the telephone.
The alligator clip also had a protrusion on the end that looked exactly like one of the prongs of an AC plug. When I asked my Dad he told me that I could plug it into one of the slots on the wall outlet and use the wiring of the house for an antenna. Boy, was he right… It worked even better than the telephone!
One snowy night I was in the living room, alligator clip plugged in the wall, earphone plugged in my head. I heard the furnace in the basement light off so I stepped on the register to warm up my feet…
I immediately found out why birds don't get electrocuted when they land on the power lines… I completed the circuit pretty well!
Just after that I got my Novice ticket and have spent the last 45 years in the electronic field.
Rick, AA4W
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Antennas (and Grounds!)
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by K2CAD on May 3, 2004
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Ahhh ! The good old days before all the lawyers. Can you imagine the feeding frenzy they would have on a company that gave you something to stick in an AC outlet. Today, I cant even get a drill that has more than 6 inches of power cord, and has a big sticker that says not to use an extension cord. Yeah I always have power within 6 inches of where I want the hole. Not to mention my nice Cushcraft antenna that came with no less than 36 stickers saying I could be killed if the antenna touches power lines. I just wish the antenna assembly instructions where as detailed as teh instructions on how and where to put the stickers.
73
Clay
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by N6AYJ on May 3, 2004
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K2CAD: Do you really think it was perfectly OK for the company that manufactured the crystal radio for children to, essentially, suggest to them that they plug the radio into the wall socket, knowing full well that they run a risk of electrocution, but not tell them of that risk?
If your kid had been electrocuted, would you have said,"Oh, well, that's OK. Them's the breaks. Better to have my kid die a painful death than to require the poor radio manufacturer to put a sticker on the radio."
Why do you blame lawyers for everything you don't like? Lawyers don't initiate lawsuits; their clients insist on it. Don't blame the lawyers; blame people like yourself, who complain if the manufacturers don't put warning labels on their products, and when the maunfacturers do put stickers on, then you complain that they did so. What a sniveler.
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by N2XE on May 3, 2004
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N6AYJ:
Geepers! Back off the Viagra, your rant was a little to stiff.
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by K0BG on May 3, 2004
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This is exactly why a lot of folks become interested in all manner of electricity; they get their brains fried as youndsters!
Alan, KØBG
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by KA4KOE on May 3, 2004
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I miss the fact that you can't find a diving board at any public pools or hotels anymore, or state parks. I do miss those cannonballs I did as a kid.
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by KF6GOM on May 3, 2004
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i remember seeing in those TV Guide ads where you can
plug this device to make a giant antenna (one leg of the ac plug was plastic ) we were to pick up stations
over 100 miles away? never knew if it worked ???
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by KC8VIF on May 3, 2004
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Too many well intentioned people trying
to bend Darwins theory.
Thats one of the biggest problems today.
Saving the ones that would be otherwise
weeded out.
Political correctness will be the
downfall of this country.
Jeeez !!!
This commentary is mean't to be humorous only,
if you are offended,you are probably one
who was denied the process of natural selection.
Hi Hi
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by KC8VWM on May 3, 2004
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I recently saw one of those "Rocket" (reproduction) crystal radios for sale at Cracker Barrel.
Also, I still have one of those "mail order" AC plug type antenas. They didn't work that well for TV stations as they implied. Worked about the same as a set of rabbit ears.
I later used it as an antenna for my handheld scanner.
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by N7BUI on May 3, 2004
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Rick,
Uh...did you do something to tick your Dad off at the time? :>
George
N7BUI
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by W3DCG on May 3, 2004
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Reminds me of when I was 11 or 12, neutralizing the P.A. in my Swan 350. Wow, did I ever discover why Lucite, or non conductive "screw drivers" are used for such work. Somehow I managed to touch something in there, actually flew several feet backwards until my back hit the wall. Darn good thing I did remember the rule about keeping one hand behind my back, or else away from the chassis or any other metal object.
I guess, the current went mostly through my arm, and most all of it missed my heart. Boy did my arm ever ache for about an hour after that.
A lesson I'll NEVER forget. By the grace of God I'm still here.
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by N8IK on May 3, 2004
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Ah yes, I recall what might have been an unfortunate incident involving needle-nose pliers and the AC socket. Still have the pliers but they're missing a 1/4" off of one side.
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by KB2CPW on May 3, 2004
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My "Ben Franklin" moment came as a curious 3 year old. I stuck a butter knife in the wall socket of a neighbors home, got zapped and as an added bonus I set my wool sweater on fire (thankfully my dad put me out). I've been hooked on elecronics ever since. Thanks Con Edison!! Richy N2ZD
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by AI3W on May 3, 2004
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Still don't see ANYTHING in the original post about LAWYERS! Perhaps you're reading way too much into this?
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by N3ZKP on May 3, 2004
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Back in '59 (my age at the time is unimportant) I fried a perfectly good Simpson 260 by trying to measure the "amperage output" of a 120v outlet by sticking the probes into the socket.
Have you ever seen a meter needle wrapped around the stop pin? <gg>
Lon
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by KD4OUZ on May 3, 2004
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I was about 4 maybe 5 years old. In our basment we had a fish aquarium built into the wall. You had to go into my dad's workshop to feed the fish, since the front was flush with the wall.
Well I wasnt supposed to, but I felt it was my duty to feed the fish one day. I went into the back room and hit the light switch...but no light came on.
I then found a chair, climbed up it, and reached for the "pull chain" light string to see if maybe that was off.
It was then I noticed there was no light bulb in the fixture.
Now dont ask me why (that was many many years ago, and I dont remember), but I stuck my finger in the socket.
Maybe I wanted to see if it was getting juice, or just see what would happen???
You can guess what happened next. =/
I'll never forget that evening.
But since then I wanted to know all about electricity, how it works, etc.
Hence my profession for many years was an electrician. And I have only made one mistake with electricity since =)
The electronics intrest came at about the same age. My grandfather (ex W4OG) was at his desk in a heavy game of chess with his buddies on the HF bands.
Not all is clear how this happened, but I touched something on his desk, if not the desk itself, or maybe I touched the radio transmitter, and had the shock of my life. To this day I dont know what I could have done wrong. Guess maybe his equip. wasnt gounded too good. But what ever it was gave me on big bite I will never forget
Hi Hi
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by AD7DB on May 3, 2004
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Look, the site's got lag. K2CAD responded and talked about the lawyers; the guys who apparently posted AHEAD of him were in RESPONSE to him. eHam's server lies in a distortion field of temporal probability. Wait 20 minutes before replying to someone and this doesn't seem to happen.
Now if I could get this to work so I can bet on horse races before they're run. But that might lead to global causuality violation and get me in trouble with the Time Cops.
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by KF3EG on May 3, 2004
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When I was about 5 (1955) my mother bought a new Singer sewing machine, well the power cord unplugged from the motor as well as the wall, so half asleep I put the motor end in my mouth and WOW I was awake. I have worked with electric and electronics ever since.
My son about the same age, 5 took my car keys on a metal ring and put a key in each side of an outlet and gave him a jolt. He works at NASA.
Well I have ruled out the cause of interest in electronics being from obduction from aliens, so it must be that magic jolt that stirs the interest.
73
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by W5HTW on May 3, 2004
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<<Rick,
Uh...did you do something to tick your Dad off at the time? :>
George
N7BUI>>
Reminds me of a joke line from my radio (broadcast) days;
"My Dad took me hunting this weekend. He looked great, he in his hunting togs and me in my cute little duck suit."
Ed
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by KC8TCQ on May 3, 2004
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My first experiance with electricity, and what not to do with it, came when I was about 5.
I have this strange thing about silence, I absolutely can not stand silence, no matter what I am doing, sleeping, studying, whatever, I have ho have some sort of background noise, music, talking, something, or I get really nervous and jumpy.
Anyway one night I was in bed and rolled over and somehow unplugged my radio next to my bed. rather than turn the light on, I decided to try to plug it bacn in in the dark. So here I am with a finger on the tip of both prongs of the plug feeling for the outlet, I found it alright, the room got really bright all of a sudden, and there was this loud poping noise and alot of smoke.
I can also remember using electricity to play some rather cruel jokes on my foster brother, we had some of the old crank phones sitting around, I stripped the wires and slowly placed them between his toes and then cranked the heck out of the phone. I was amazed, he was break dancing about 10 years before it became popular.
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by VE6XX on May 4, 2004
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Hello All: I was 12 years old & an uncle of mine died & his widow gave me his nearly new SX-42 receiver.She could barely manage to operate her all-American 5 tube table radio...she had a pencil mark on the tuning knob & another on the case which she aligned in order to receive her favorite station!!. Anyway...we lived in the city of Toronto at the time, & the telephone drop wire was about 150 feet long from the pole to the house. The drop wire had a "box" which it fed that had the two carbon protection resistors mounted on it. The box was "Bakelite" or some such material. I took a 600vdc Sprague capacitor and connected one end to the drop wire & connected the other to a piece of #16 insulated wire which I fed upstairs to my bedroom to the SX-42. Man! I could hear EVERYTHING!! I came home from school one day & the "Bell" repairman was there, in the basement working at the entrance box, & demanding to know what the "thing" & the wire was for.
My father had an office in the basement & he expressed ignorance(justly) of the "foreign attachment" . The capacitor had shorted to ground through the 80 metre antenna coils of the receiver & had put the "telegraph battery" to ground, & knocked out all the phones in the area. The "Bell" guy plugged his "butt" set onto the line & talked with another tech who confirmed that all was now well. The tech left, admonishing my father of the terrible penalties for "foreign attachments" to phone company property. My father accosted me, & of course I lied like a rug, disavowing ANY knowledge of the "attachment". Admission of guilt would have earned me a proper hiding with his razor strop! Shortly thereafter I reconnected a capacitor to the line, but used a .0068 cap, 1600vdc .......a radio vibrator "buffer" capacitor, which is likely still there! Live & learn. Oh! BTW, I had to send off to Hallicrafters to buy the replacement 80 metre antenna coils..the originals were burned BLACK!
CHEERS! Brian
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by K0BG on May 4, 2004
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Brian, go back towards the front of the threads and read what I wrote. Are you sure you weren't burnt too?
Alan, KØBG
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by NZ5L on May 4, 2004
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Your article reminded me of the time I decided to neutralize the final amplifier I had recently completed, my Heathkit SB-200. Not bothering to use the proper tool, I just wrapped a layer of electrical tape around the jeweller's screwdriver that fit the capacitor adjustment slot--WRONG!! Through a tiny gap in the tape, I instantly learned respect for high DC potentials as my whole arm shot towards the wall and I gave my "funny bone" a really good bang. Fortunately, I had absorbed one bit of wisdom from wiser sorts--always keep one hand in your pocket in any situation where you might come into contact with a high voltage. Nowadays, instructing in Radio at a summer camp, it's a rule I always pass on.
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by W3PH on May 4, 2004
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I had one of those little rocket-shaped crystal sets when I was a kid, too, but as I recall the idea was to hook the clip to the screw on the outlet wallplate, not plug it into the AC itself ;-) Worked well for KDKA about 30 miles away ...
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by K4CMD on May 4, 2004
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Since this has turned into a thread of "America's Funniest Electrical Bloopers" I'll share one with you.
This one was intentional.
Some guys at my high school (and I was NOT part of this group, no, not me!) back in the early 80s found a great way to disrupt class. You see, we'd just gotten a new science building -- with very few windows, which was not the norm at my school -- so a power outage had the wonderful (for students) result of shutting down class, usually long enough to end class for that period. Our chemistry class met in a lab room in that building, and everyone sat at those long, black bakelite tables that had sinks, gas spigots and -- outlets in them.
One of "us" devised the most brilliant, yet simplistic, class-disrupting device ever created -- he took a standard replacement AC plug, opened it up and shorted the two blades together with the heaviest wire he could find. Placing the cover back on it, he had a pocketable, safe (for the user, that is) circuit shorter. On several occasions he plugged his invention into one of the outlets so conveniently at reach from his (last row) seat, finding that he could trip the circuit breaker not only for our entire room, but for the room next door, within seconds of inserting The Plug. Once class was in disarray, he could safely remove The Plug and pocket it, eliminating all traces of his act.
Eventually he was caught and suspended (I hear an older outlet in one building didn't like The Plug and protested smokingly), but his simple little invention created a surge (!) of copycats, and I think today, 20 years later, the administration at my old school still wonders why the AC is so unreliable there.
Meade K4CMD
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by KJ7XJ on May 4, 2004
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I found out at age 5 (I think) that a twist-tie from the bread bag(before they used plastic sealing devices)works wonders when you strip off alittle bit of the paper on each end and plug it in to either side of the outlet. I would watch it burn the paper and light up like a filiment before burning through. It was somewhere around this time of experimentation that I got the shock of my life which shorted out half the house. Isnt electricity cool.... KJ7XJ - Eric
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by IV3SBE on May 4, 2004
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You are right, I got the Radio virus straight after been electrocuted at a lab room of my grandfather Hi.
73's
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by N5TTT on May 4, 2004
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In response to the Swan 350 neutralization:
Mine was a Hallicrafters HT-32A, and an AN/SPS-49v4!! and I have the scars to remind me. Ahhhh the memories.
Here I am 20 years later and into my 3rd callsign.
Ex -- ET2(SW)
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by W5WJP on May 4, 2004
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Now I would never do things like you have described, but I would tell my brothers to do them......I showed my one brother how to check if a 9v battery was good by wetting a finger and putting it on one terminal and touching his tongue to the other.......imagine his surprise when I gave him a B battery to test. He still has a scar on his tongue. It's nice to have your own set of crash test dummies.
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by KE4KVW on May 4, 2004
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Should get an M2,they have the warning stickers and "EASY"instructions and work "GREAT" also!Even better with a GOOD radio.God bless,ClaytonKE4KVW
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by IX4NT on May 5, 2004
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IV3SBE is the epitome of a 'dead man talking'. Having been electrocuted as a youngster, his is risen from the dead.
Just so we understand, electrocution is defined as having been KILLED by electric current.
Assuming that IV3SBE truly is alive and well, he may have been 'shocked', but he most certainly was not electrocuted.
Now, let's hear about more shocking experiences.
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by K4CMD on May 5, 2004
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I know it's off-topic, but here's my opportunity to air one of my biggest complaints about a term the media always gets wrong -- with thanks to the above post for bringing up this kind of topic.
"Strangling" is defined as "to choke to death." I can't count how many times I've heard the redundant phrase, "He was strangled to death."
(I guess this could be applied to ham radio following a fall into your tower rigging or something!)
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program ...
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by WG7Y on May 5, 2004
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And they claim that Broadband over Powerline (BPL) is not going to radiate!
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by K0RGR on May 5, 2004
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Yes, I am often amazed that I survived my childhood.
My family was not well off back in the 50's, so we 4 boys always went barefoot in the summertime. We had been playing in the sprinkler one afternoon, and on the way back into the house, I found that the ground wire for the BC-348 recevier my dad had given me to play with had come off the outdoor water pipe. I reached down with my right hand and picked up the insulated wire - everything was OK until my hand touched the stripped portion of the ground lead.
That's when I learned that AC/DC power supplies and non-polarized AC cords were a bad idea. It's too easy to plug the cord in so that the case of the radio is hot!
I stood there basically frozen, unable to move my hands or my right leg. After what seemed like forever, I was able to move my left foot just enough to pull the wire out of my hand.
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by KD7ZNI on May 5, 2004
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Hello there,
Studyed for my 1st Ham license back in the early 80's, but allas, I never got to the FFC office for testing and other activities of daily living got in the way.
So, finally, I studyed for the Tech exam and passed it this past February and hope to pass the Morse exam and take the General exam in June.
I don't know why I'm telling you all this, except to say this thread had something to do with my facination with electricity, just can't seem to remember the incident that sparked my interest.
Be of good cheer.
73, Steve KD7ZNI
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by KA2UUP on May 5, 2004
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As Archie Bunker once said to the Meathead when the latter did not want his son watching a football game because it was a violent sport:
"If you want to be a red-blooded American you ought to get serious injuries!!!!"
I see AA4W's experience, although frightening, as a learning experience. What kid has not done anything dumb???
I was raised with no elbow and knee guards, no helmets when riding bikes, had an electric train when I was 3 years old and was not electrocuted and had a go cart at age 5 and rode it with no helmet. Had my falls, scrapes and goose eggs, but I learned from the experience not to do "THAT" again.
What the heck is wrong with kids this days????
N6AYJ, you are a lawyer, aren't you????
Bert @ KA2UUP
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by KF4VGX on May 5, 2004
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by KA4KOE on May 3, 2004
I miss the fact that you can't find a diving board at any public pools or hotels anymore, or state parks. I do miss those cannonballs I did as a kid.
So you were the kid that took all the water out of the pool,left us youngun's high and dry ! :)
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by K4JSR on May 8, 2004
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Naw! Philip would, more than likely, fill the pool
with Jello and then watch the kids jump in and
quiver for thirty minutes! :-D
Cal K4JSR
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by KC5YIL on May 12, 2004
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OK my Shocking Story - to add to the statistics of those that were touched and then went on to favor electrical/electronics.
I must have been about 9 or 10, and it was Xmas. I was playing in my fathers "forbidden" tool box and found a replacement lamp cord plug, and about 3 feet of 300 ohm twin lead in for the TV - and all the tools I could dream of!
Of course I had seen my dad replace plugs, and there were only two wires, so what could be easier and what could I harm?
Plug went on the 300 ohm line pretty easy, although I do remember overstripping a couple of times and breaking the conductor.
Now I had the male end, but no female end - now what? The Xmas tree(just near the hall closet hiding the tool box)had not been plugged in for the day yet, and I feasted my eyes upon the very convenient two prong plug with the wierd little holes in each prong near the tip.
Eureka! Now I can test my first rig. I stripped the 300 ohm line some more and did my first wire wrapping job on the prongs. Now just plug it in and then run to tell everyone to come see my homemade extension cord!
I learned quickly about Ohms law! Poof, sparkle, crackle, and a little fire. Neat Xmas lights!
Also saw stars when my dad got home.
73s
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by N0RTU on May 16, 2004
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I think I was about 6 yrs old. I found a screwdriver with a very long shaft in the utility room. It was laying in a box along with some other tools. I took it into the basement and was very much determined to find out how the old tube type Curtis Mathis TV worked. I knew if I could get the back off of the TV, the mystery would be solved.
Anyhow, taking the back off the set soon turned into poking the long shank screwdriver into the set through the perforated back cover....................
When I woke up, I just knew that electronics was the field of endeavor for me!
That was almost 40 years ago and I can assure you guys that other than steering me to an electrical/electronic vocation, the electrocution had absolutely no ill effects on me whatsoever!
I have several other stories I'd like to relate to everyone but its time for my favorite cartoons now and the nice lady who wears the white pants and jacket will be bringing me my Jello and my "vitamin" soon, so it will have to wait.......
There is nothing wrong with me
There is nothing wrong with me
73
de
Mike
N0RTU
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