Has anyone here ever been knocked on their azz so badly by RF / B+ that they have flashbacks about it 30 years later?
I'm not talking about 900 vdc in a sweep tube amplifier, that will knock you back a few steps and make you curse at it; I'm talking about 3-500z voltage.
I had an RF appliance under test (Blackcat JB-2000), it was sitting on the floor while I was sitting in an office chair in the radio room. With the hinged cover open, while transmitting to the owner of the device, I leaned back and attempted to reach over and adjust the controls and, I got "too close" and RF jumped out of that open cover and got me (with the metal "Chick Choker" Microphone in the other hand).
Because I was leaning back in the chair, the momentum of the involuntary muscle contractions knocked me out of the chair "Back-flip" style (saved my life because it broke the current path) and I landed on the floor five feet away. I was talking on the radio when it happened so, a number of folks knew something had happened.
When I came to / to my senses, the first thing that I did was to move my head (actually, I banged it into the chair leg a couple of times and said to myself, "You alive, at least you are still alive") and then, while still lying on the floor I checked to see if my legs and arms still worked.
By this time, there was someone banging on my door, I dragged myself up, still taking inventory of the new holes that had been burned into my body and the fact that I still had all ten fingers; pain, burnt flesh, entrance and exit wounds of RF current. At the door, was the fellow that I was talking to on the radio at the time of the incident; he lives 15 minutes away.
I tried to tell him what happened but, as he tells it, I was babbling incoherently. I took another 20 minutes before I could talk straight and only then would he leave. The next day, I told him to come get that POS and, I completely emptied my workbench of high voltage RF / high voltage RF devices and, I refused to touch one for repair for over 6 months.
To this day, I can be minding my own business, involved in something else and then, "KA-FAP"; I feel that jolt from 30 years ago and It just send a shiver through my body, almost like the real thing.
However, when working on such devices after that, before I would start I always remind myself of the incident and I always start out with one hand in my back pocket for safety.
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Originally Posted by AC8KF WALT
