Ah, yes, what was the stupidest thing I ever did as a
ham...lessee...there's so much to choose from. I'll start with the time
when I built my first transmitter (a Lafayette KT-390 "Starflite") from
a kit and accidentally swapped the two different three prong terminal
strips--one of which had a grounded center lug and the other of which
didn't. When I fired 'er up, I was very pleased to note that it seemed
to work fine but there seemed to be an oddity that I eventually (after
many shocking experiences!) traced to the fact that it depended whether
you put the two-prong AC line cord in one way or t'other. The "engineer"
in me was careful (ha!) to usually plug it in the "correct" way but I
wondered why they hadn't warned me about that in the manual...Well, come
to find out, it *does* make a difference which type of three-pronged
terminal strip goes where and that I had (you guessed it!) put the one
that had the center lug grounded in the *AC input*.
That's just the first one...then there was the time I got quite the
shock from the B+ line on my college radio transmitter (I was the
"chief" engineer -- we were great at using grandiose sounding titles
just because they did so in the real radio -- oh, did I tell you I had
earned a first class FCC radiotelephone license by then?) But I digress...
They say that confession is good for the soul...
Yours in electronics experience,
Joe, W2RBA
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