Rick,
I've seen sticks that were anywhere from a bit over a foot to three
feet long. As far as material choice, even a good wooden broomstick
or dowel seems like a good bet, because the business end is well
grounded.
BTW, I didn't mean to come on so strong in the original post. It's
just that I'm obviously a strong believer on this one point. The
other precautions about switches, meters and so forth are very
important, but none of them are fool proof. The shorting stick is
just a very important fail safe.
Alan
On Jun 1, 2006, at 3:37 PM, Rick Brashear wrote:
Speaking of "shorting sticks", I saw one a while back on the e-
place, but didn't seriously bid on it. Can one of you guys
enlighten me as to the best material to use for the insulator and
about how long to make it?
Thanks,
Rick
Not only is a shorting stick not a bad idea, not using one is a
terrible idea. As someone who has spent many hours working on
high power transmitters, I would NEVER touch anything inside a
transmitter without first touching it with a shorting stick.
When I do not have a proper shorting stick available, I connect a
grounded wire to a well insulated screw driver and use that as a
makeshift shorting stick. There is are no allowable exceptions
to the shorting stick rule, as far as I am concerned.
Never rely on meters, pilot lamps or switch positions to tell you
if HV is present. Switches can short and pilot lights can burn
out. I've seen at least one high power uplink amplifier where
the designers used the bleeder resistor as part of the meter
multiplier string. An open bleeder meant zero HV on the meter
but possibly a full charge on the filter caps. In that situation
a shorting stick could be the difference between life and death.
Never, ever, touch anything inside of a high power transmitter
without using a stick. Period!
Alan
WA2DZL
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