Ok, thanks for the replies.  Yeah, the thing is, smoking, drinking alcohol, and all that stuff only endangers yourself.  My main concern is whether this will goof anybody else up who doesn't have the control to skip pressing the PTT button.

I’ve been wondering about RF safety.  I don’t mean to sound like a pansy, but if you could shed some light on this I’d really appreciate it.  I’ve been off the air for about 3 months and am thinking about maybe getting back on.  The only band I really care to use is 40-meters.  My rig is an IC-718 with 100 watts out PEP, and a 40-meter half wave dipole strung over the house.  I’m not sure of the exact distance from the closest person, but the RF would have to travel through the attic, and into the house.  I’m guessing conservatively it is probably 5 feet from the center of the dipole straight down to the ceiling.  I’m doing the calculation for SSB, and for CW I’m only using 50 watts PEP.  So on the U Texas website I used their calculator.  100 * .20 * .67 = 13.4.  So then I fill in the rest of the data using the info given above and counting in ground effects:
Calculation Results
Average Power at the Antenna   13.400 watts
Antenna Gain in dBi   2.20 dBi
Distance to the Area of Interest   5.00 feet
Frequency of Operation   7.300 MHz
Are Ground Reflections Calculated?   Yes
Estimated RF Power Density   0.1951 mw/cm2

    Controlled
Environment   Uncontrolled
Environment
Maximum Permissible Exposure (MPE)   16.89 mw/cm2   3.38 mw/cm2
Distance to Compliance From Center of Antenna   0.59 feet   1.25 feet
Does the Area of Interest Appear to be in Compliance?   yes   yes

CW is the same because the power is cut in half.  So it looks like I’m far enough away.  I noticed that on the oet65b.pdf document from the FCC it said for heavy speech processing use 50% duty cycle.  Sometimes I run the built in speech compressor, so should I factor this in?  I also don’t have any rf ground on it.  Also, something about this just seems a little fishy.  They are pretty much saying you can chew on your antenna while transmitting.  Also, it seems like pretty much every ham I talk to wears glasses (including me, sometimes), and people I talk to on the air are having metabolism problems, or cataracts, and all that junk.  I’ve heard people talk about getting cancer in their ht ear, and losing a kidney.  I’m wondering what you honestly think about my setup.  Also, how much research and how sure is the FCC about their calculations?
Thanks much es 73,
Tim W8LBO

Hi,
     I'm not sure myself.  I've had an IC-718 for about a year and a half.  It came with the free UT-106, but I never installed it.  It worked really well for me without it, so I figured I might as well not risk putting it in.
73,
Tim W8LBO

     I'm repainting the base. So I figured if I take it off I don't have to put masking tape over it.  And if I really goof up the paint job, it will probably look better then it does now.
     I have no objection to using a Vibroplex, so if you think I should use one, just ship it to my mailing address here on eham.net
73 es tnx,
Tim W8LBO

I was wondering if the post that holds the spring on the Bencher BY-1 can come off of the base.  I took out the spring, but the post just won't come off.  I don't want to put to much pressure on it if it is meant to stay there, so I figured I should ask.
tnx

Due to the time change 0100z is now 9:00 P.M. Eastern.  See you there!

Does NCJ give out certificates for the North American SSB Sprint, and if so, to what entrants.  Just curious, I wrote the contest folks, and they didn't reply.
Thanks.

     There'll be two youth nets run in the middle of the Kids Roundup contest.  
    The World Wide Youth Net is meeting on 21.305MHz +/- QRM, at 1900z today.  
    The .275 Youth Group is running on 7.275MHz +/- QRM at 0100z, today.  Notice, that this is 8:00 P.M. Eastern time, and there is a good chance we might be on 7.274Mhz.
    So if you would like to drop by, it would be great, and if you have third party folks, that would be great too.  Remember, poeple of any age is welcome to check-in.        
Hope to see you there,
Tim W8LBO

Do I do the same thing on the audio line out?  Only solder the two parts of a stereo plug?  For the transmit cable, should I use the accessory jack or the microphone plug on the radio?  Also, do you know where I can find a diagram of how to solder the mic/accessorie pins? Thanks, I really appreciate it.

What if I were to rotate it around so that the 100 ohm side was on the radio output, and the 8 ohm was on the computer input? Would that work? The part number for this is BUXFMR1K8 on the www.buxcomm.com.

I mean, would that attenuate the audio low enough on both the input to the computer and to the radio? tnx

So, if I put a 100 ohm to 8 ohm isolation transformer in there, would that take care of the isolation/attenuation problem?

Also, this probably sounds pretty stupid, but I have some RG-58 lying around and was wondering if I could use this as the audio cable? Thanks.

Hello,
     Ok, I am starting to understand sound card interfaces better.  But I have a question about the plugs I should use.  I found out that the radio has a mono plug for the external speaker.  So I need a cable with a mono plug on one end.  But what plug do I use to hook it up to the microphone jack of the computer?  The microphone I have uses a stereo plug.  I read I should use a stereo plug, and just leave one of the pins unsoldered.  But, isn't this then the same as a mono plug?  Would it be ok to use a mono plug in this instance? Also, I assume that I use a stereo plug on the audio line out jack? Or no?
Thank you.

I reread the post on mono plug usage, and I just want to make sure I have this right.  Are you saying that I shouldn't use a mono plug on the mic jack, or are you saying it'd be ok?  
Thanks.