"Doug" wrote in news:9oXsf.3764$nu6.3074
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Regarding HF SSB grounding

A ham acquaintance was involved with a crazy preacher, Rev RG Stair, from
Walterboro, SC. The good Rev paid for a Canadian fishing trawler and
they installed this transmitter:
http://hawkins.pair.com/voanc/voanc07.jpg
from VOA into the fish hold amidships running off a 250KW diesel genset
welded to the main deck. Two self-supporting towers were welded to the
bow and stern. The antenna was a T cage antenna that terminated in a
feed through insulator rated at 100KV in a big hole in the hold's main
hatch over the transmitter's 600 ohm balanced output. One leg simply
open under the hatch inside the hold, the other leg going through the
insulator to the T cage outside. There was a "little RF" in the hold
because of this open wire feeder arrangement. I glowed blue when it was
lit off at 70KW output, over its rated output with all the safety
features jumpered out. AS you can see from my souvenir insulator, the
in-the-hold side that exploded right over my head, we had a little
flashover just above 40 meters...(c;


http://www.qrz.com/callsign/w4csc

The FCC confiscated it all from the good Reverend soon after the "testing
phase" and put a proud picture in the Charleston newspaper shoing the FCC
chief engineer-who-should-know-better holding a dangerous Heathkit DX-35
AM-CW 35 watt ham transmitter to the press cameras. FCC forgot to pay
Detyen's Shipyard for the crane service to remove the big transmitter,
several thousand dollars. Detyen's got even, I understand.

Great fun for a while....(c;

POWER IS OUR FRIEND!