"Eisboch" wrote in
:

The worst shock I ever received was from a high power, high voltage DC
power supply. 12,000 volts with current capacity of 1.5 amps.
Happened at the first job I had after leaving the Navy. I remember my
hands feeling like basketballs, then I went out like a light. Woke up
in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.


I got mine aboard USS Everglades (AD-24), the tender I spent over 3 years
on in the 1960's. Radio 2 had TBK, TBL, TBM and TCS transmitters from
WW2 on them, still. TBK's were powered from Ship's 110V DC off a steam-
powered generator, that also ran the on-deck winches.

I had a TBK tagged out, logged out for maintenance to fix the broken one,
also tagged out properly, making resistance measurements on the HV DC
generator on the good one when an idiot RM2 fired off the genset dispite
the tagout. I woke up a couple of hours later in sick bay staring into
my captain's worried face next to my chief.

The RM2 made RMSM before his transfer went through. My tags were treated
with more respect in Radio Central after that. My captain was NOT
amused.

That generator was rated at 1.5A 3KV continuous duty. I don't know how
much current it was capable of when you were between HV and the chassis
of it. I can attest it was "substantial". Two fingers were burned and
had no feeling for over a year.

Loved those old TBKs. I could call Test Control on Sullivan's Island on
2150 from half way across the Atlantic on 'em with CW and get an
immediate answer of 5-9-9 almost any night to/from the Med...(c; The AM
modulators were added later and were big bulkhead-mounted audio power
amps in that 3000VDC line from the genset. The air around the longwires
glowed blue if you tuned 'em up right....(c;

Larry
--
I was WB4THE in those days, the only ham aboard. My comm officer hated
my guts because our captain thought it was funny to rush into Radio
Central and demand to talk to Charleston from Gibraltar, immediately. Of
course, that wasn't gonna happen on a 500W URC-32 into a 32' whip through
a tuner so inefficient it had to have a cooling fan.

"I'm sorry, Sir. We don't have direct comms with Charleston.", he'd tell
our captain.

"That's crap!", our captain would tell him, "I was just talking to my
wife on James Island through ET1 Butler's Heathkit ham station back in
the cal lab through his buddy's phone patch!"

Hence the comm officer's hatred.....(c;

My homebrew KW amp looked exactly like a Hewlett-Packard 524D freq
counter in the cal lab's rack! Even the neon numbers read 000000000.