In article , "RP Henry" richard.p.henry@saic dot
com writes:

"Tom Sevart" wrote in message
...

"WB3FUP (Mike Hall)" wrote in message
...
10KV to fire magnetron in counter battery radar. Took six marines to stop
me from burying my screw driver in the chest of the asshole that thought
it
would be cute to push the radiate button.

I remember hearing the story of an Air Force tech working on a 30' radar
dish. For some dumb reason, someone energized it and promptly microwaved
him to death.

Some of these stories are hair rasing... and I'm too much of a weenie to
stick my tongue on a 9V battery...

A Raytheon corporate legend is that one of the engineers discovered the
microwave oven principle when a radar melted a chocolate bar in his shirt
pocket.

That's been an Urban Legend for decades...probably a PR plant from
someone at Raytheon's Santa Barbara, CA, division that deveeloped
the RadaRange (originally a trademark of Raytheon before they sold that
consumer line to Amana).

========

While all the war stories and chit-chat are entertaining, please consider
a real-life tragedy that happened to a TV broadcast van in Los Angeles
last year. The van had stopped and erected its field-to-transmitter link
dish to Mount Wilson where the TV transmitter was. Standard
procedure here to get a clear shot above buildings and obstructions,
all the field vans have such erectable dishes.

Nobody in the field crew seems to have noticed that the van was under
a "high-line" of higher-voltage lines common in local area power
distribution. The dish and its two-section small crane came in contact
with the high-line. Somehow the kind of contact sent a good-sized
electrical power flow down into the van. A woman reporter was severely
burned in addition to being knocked unconscious...burns severe enough
to require amputation of part of an arm and part of a leg. She survived
but spent many months in the hospital and physical therapy, had to use
a wheelchair to get around even though active and healthy and not yet
40 before the accident.

This incident was clearly a result of STUPID NON-ATTENTION by the
TV field crew. That high-line distribution is common all over this city
and adjoining cities. To erect the link dish right into power wiring of
any kind was just compounding the stupidity.

I mention this because amateur radio nearly always involves outside
antennas in urban areas close to utility power wiring on poles. The
possibility of fatal or terrible electric shock isn't confined to some
radio-electronic box interior...it exists out in the open, in plain sight.
Keep it in mind to avoid frying that mind.

Len Anderson
retired (and still living) electronic engineer person