The AM Forum

I had a little mishap the other night while testing and caused a fire in the backyard.  My dipole has bare wire stubs on the end so that I can attach alligator clips.  I can clip in or out a horizontal wire to make the antenna a delta loop. 

Well, the kids apparently had a foil helium balloon near one of the ends.  It came into contact with the wires, caught fire, fell to the ground and caught the fake grass on fire.  Fake grass is cool in Arizona.  Luckily the mother in law spotted the fire before it spread too far.  I extinguished it with the garden hose. 

The only other casualty was one of the kid's toy cars.  It melted to the ground as you can see from the picture.

Jon

  About 10 years ago I was just turning in for the evening when my power went out for a few seconds then came on again, it was a very windy night. I  worked for the local power company as a communications technician, the next day I had a job to do by the shop for the substation department, I saw on of the protection technicians and asked him what had happened. I was actually joking with him about "you guys need to keep my power on" !!!

  He laughed and said here look at the pictures... The wind had blown a foil coated helium balloon between the bushings (insulators) of a 115 KV breaker in yard of the substation that feeds my neighborhood. The results were spectacular to say the least!!! The phase to phase arc blew the crap out of the bushings (insulators) on that breaker, the station protection saw the fault and opened the breaker then did a reclose, the fault had cleared.

  Considering the damage to the bushings I'm surprised that the fault cleared, the electric utility companies would like to see these conductive type of balloons outlawed, that type of failure is not uncommon.

That toy is a favorite little car for kids. Our son had one.
That's the problem when you're running 10KW, Jon  ::)

Thus the expression: "The less is said, the less is known"

The picture of the melted kids car should be on the cover of QRP Quarterly with the caption, "Oh, the humanity!"

Jon

Do they have any fake farms out there growing fake corn so people from back east won't get homesick?

Lots of fakeness out here.  Vegas especially!  But it's awesome!

As for me, New England is awesome, but the only thing I miss is the Deerfield hamfest.

Jon 

""    but the only thing I miss is the Deerfield hamfest.  ""

The beer is pretty good.


klc

 Been here in the Bay Area since 1971, Winter in the Palm Trees is still a bit strange, I guess once a New Englander always. Some of my attitudes and most certainly my education is different from my friends the same age who were raised here. I've never been to Vegas, Reno must be a smaller version, LA, especially Hollywierd is the definition of fakeness.

 I've been retired for 18 months, been back to MA where I have two sisters and a lot of relatives four times so far, been to the last four Fall NEARFESTS, a good swap meet. We don't have the few very large swaps like back east but a lot of medium sized ones, mostly from March to October here in CA. I could live in MA from May until the end of October but for the rest of the year no way, I'll look at snow from 30 miles away on some of the Bay Area mountains. Last Friday I went to Sacramento, it was a nice clear day, you could see the white line to the east, looked like a low cloud bank, it is the snow covered tops of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

  The picture is taken from the top of Mt Oso in the CA coast range in April about 6 years ago, I had to drive up that canyon, 15 miles of dirt road, several streams to ford, interstate 5 is down on the beginning of the flat land, the white line way in the distance are the snow covered Sierra Nevada Mountains.

 

Antennas should never be installed where there is even the slightest possibility of humans coming in contact with elements hot with RF, and especially kids with toys/ balloons. Besides that they work much better when elevated. You are loading up your stone wall. Even 15 or 20 feet of TV antenna mast or fence railing bolted to that wall and getting the wire out of harm's way will add measurable DB improvement in your signal. Ok It's kinda sad your kid's car got melted but think about how it would have been if the kid jumped up in the air (they do that a lot) and grabbed that alligator clip while you were transmitting? Have you ever gotten an RF burn? The kid's hand would end up with a scar to last a lifetime. Key your rig into that "antenna" some time and go outside with a screwdriver. Touch it to the clip, slowly pull it away and see how long the resulting arc is. Then think about the damage that amount of voltage can do to human tissue.

The day after, I removed the bottom wire (alligator clips and all).  I also cut the stub off the end of the dipole so that no wire is exposed.  I live in an HOA neighborhood, so I can't raise the wire above the wall.  Believe me, I've pondered installing 20' posts on each end. 

I've made it as safe as I can.  Lots of people have guns around with kids and I think there's much less risk with my current antenna configuration. 

But, point very well taken. 

Jon

Your just a stones throw from me QTH is Livermore I know Mt.Oso well. Flew helicopters with a guy who's family owned property up there some where. Its been years since I flew with him, but I think his last name was Banks don't quote me on that though.