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Author Topic: There's no modulation transformer in this amateur's homebrew rig.  (Read 26705 times)
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Todd, KA1KAQ
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« Reply #50 on: March 23, 2007, 11:47:25 AM »

During grade school in the early 50's, we had regular atomic bomb attack drills.  Get this, each student received a personal asbestos pad to sit on to keep our butts warm when we sat on the cold floors of the school hallway.

Ah, yes - good ol' Bert the Turtle and that little monkey in the tree. I was a wee one then, so memories are vague. They were probably using the asbestos pads as potholders in the kitchen by then.

I do recall the large air horn atop city hall was used to signal an attack with a long, steady tone. Now and then the system would spaz, resulting in a long blast until the repairman could get there to fix it. They finally started to announce the malfunctions on the local AM station so we wouldn't think the commies were coming. Little did we know...

A buddy up in the NW corner of the state has a bomb shelter in the basement of his home, built when the place was constructed back then. He converted it to a win cellar.  Cheesy

IIRC, we got a LOT more fallout from that whole Chernobyl thing than any of the Nevada tests. Montpelier, VT was cited as one of the heaviest hit locations IIRC.

Somewhere in the vastness of my junk are messages I taped from a Met-Ed phone line they provided after that whole Pepsi Syndrome thing at TMI-2. They gave daily updates via this public line, as a high school senior it was interesting to listen to. I remember them talking about the bubble, noble gas, and other action-packed topics.

That SNL skit with Dan Aykroyd as Jimmy Carter and Gilda Radner as Baba Wawa is one of my favs.

Baba Wawa: Hewwo, this is Baba Wawa speaking to you wive fwom Two Miwe Iwand. I'm speaking to you wive fwom the Two Miwe Iwand Nucweaw Weactow site whewe wumows awe wunning wampant that the pwesident has been exthposed to wethaw wevews of wadiation. And he has gwown to an incwedibly widiculous pwopowtion. He's weawwy, weawwy, wawge.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ppepsi.phtml
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AF9J
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« Reply #51 on: March 23, 2007, 11:55:02 AM »

I remember that SNL skit!  Dan Akroyd played Jimmy Carter, Gilda Radner played Rosalyn Carter, Garret Morris played the maid sent into the control room to mop up the radioactive water, and and Bill Murray played the reactor operator who spilled his Pepsi all over the control board.  To this day, the first generation SNL group was the best.

73,
Ellen - AF9J
Drinking a Pepsi One
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Todd, KA1KAQ
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« Reply #52 on: March 23, 2007, 12:06:00 PM »

To this day, the first generation SNL group was the best.

Ellen - AF9J
Drinking a Pepsi One

Agreed, including Belushi's "no coke, pepsi" cafe skits and so many others. He deserves credit for making ninjas more fashionable as well. Smiley

What ever happened to Pepsi Light from the same timeframe? "We put a little lemony taste in and took out half the caloires" was their big seller. I bet the government was involved. Some kind of conspiracy to test evil substances on us.

Probably the one-armed man had a hand in it.
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AF9J
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« Reply #53 on: March 23, 2007, 12:22:35 PM »

Hi Todd,

Actually, it wasn't Ninjas Belushi would play. It was Samurais. Remember them?  He always seemed to play them, whenever they had Buck Henry on the show.  Skits like: Samurai Optometrist (where Buck Henry asks if he could have the eyeglass frames in tortishell, and Belushi takes a tortise out of an aquarium, throws it up in the air, and swipes at it with his Katana sword saying "haiiiii", picks up a pair of tortishell framed glasses off of the ground, and gives them to Buck); and Samurai Tailor.

Also, remember the "What if?" skits, like the one, where Superman grows up in Germany instead of the US, and winds up being Uberman?  Garret Morris plays the US Air Force general, who confidently states that we would have developed a kryptonite bomb to stop him.

Good stuff,
Ellen - AF9J


Agreed, including Belushi's "no coke, pepsi" cafe skits and so many others. He deserves credit for making ninjas more fashionable as well. Smiley
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The Slab Bacon
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« Reply #54 on: March 23, 2007, 12:41:21 PM »

You know, this comes back to my "forbidden fruit" analogy. With all of the open air testing back in the 50s and 60s they seemed like they had no idea of the long term after effects the things they were "playing with". It was new, the highest high tech, and fascinating new ground to break. However I often wonder if they really knew back then what theywere messing with. Keeping in mind that back then this technology was in its infancy, I wonder how well it was really understood at the time. Some of the long term effects have been devastating.

I often wonder what new mutated species of sea life have been created by the underwater testing. I also often wonder what long lasting effects do we still have in our atmosphere.

As science and technology have taken great leaps in this technology field today, it is now pretty much understood as a somewhat exact science. I just wonder if "back in the day" they really knew and understood what they were experimenting with, or was it just the fascination for something that made bigger and bigger booms??
It just seems kinda scary from a laymans point of view. With the current polution issues, and fossil fuels being a somewhat finite resource, I see nuclear power as the definate way of the future, but the whole scenario is kinda scarey.

                                                    The Slab Bacon
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Todd, KA1KAQ
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« Reply #55 on: March 23, 2007, 01:11:48 PM »

You know, this comes back to my "forbidden fruit" analogy. With all of the open air testing back in the 50s and 60s they seemed like they had no idea of the long term after effects the things they were "playing with". It was new, the highest high tech, and fascinating new ground to break. However I often wonder if they really knew back then what theywere messing with.

This was true in the 40s for sure, Frank. I knew a fellow who was one of the first US troops into Hiroshima after the war ended, he was an old fishing buddy of my grandfather. Talking with him in the early 80s was always interesting, his eyes were as big as saucers and seemed to be spinning. He had sores on his legs and arms that never seemed to heal, and angina to boot. No idea how much of that was attributed to his exposure, but they went in with no protective gear at all. You'd think by the 50s/60s they'd have figured this out, which is no doubt why they located the test sites where they did. But I suspect you're right, they either didn't know or weren't assigning enough significance to wx patterns and so on. Nuclear energy is a true wonder to me, I hope it can be made more palitable to the public in the near future.

Hi Todd,
Actually, it wasn't Ninjas Belushi would play. It was Samurais. Remember them? 

Ninjas...Samurais....they all look the same to me, Ellen. Wink

One of the more memorable skits I remember from SNL with Garret was the one about South African Krugerrands. Try to imagine a skit like that in today's politically-correct, warm-fuzzy world.

The most prophetic one has to be Belushi dancing around his own gravestone, explaining how everyone else was dead and they were all so sure he'd be gone at a young age.

We now return to your regularly-scheduled atom-splitting, already in progress...
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Rick & "Roosevelt"


« Reply #56 on: March 23, 2007, 01:35:04 PM »

Hmm, the postings appear to becoming a little bit alarmist.  We live in a sea of natural radiation, the long term effects of which guarantee evolution.  Without it we'd still be slime in mud cake : ) Does any of us really  know where natural background segues into accelerated evolution? Benignly? Harmfully?

I worked at NTS (Nevada Nuclear Test Site) in '66 for Birdwell Div. of SSC, Div. of Raytheon in downhole drilling paramater (shot holes, slant holes and vertical test holes) and post shot radiation surveys. I've personally witnessed some events, measured results radiometrically and physically, and know of procedures for adapting normal oil field technology to high intensity radiation surveying which I'll sure not post here.

 Some of our downhole tools (e.g. neutron/neutron density tools, cement top locator tools, etc. used built-in neutron sources such as Co60.) These sources were hot and called for safe usage procedures, let alone worrying about radiation in the external environment. Use of radiation sources in downhole tools is still current and safe in today's ho-hum drilling industry, - Schlumberger, et.al.  It all depends on knowing safe procedures. How many of us thought of RF fields not so long ago?  How many of us safely work with HV?  Yeah, just about all of us. We know the devil with which we sleep.  Comfort level is simply a function of knowledge.

Suffice to say I've still got all my hair : )  If any of you want to really discuss radiation levels, radiometric standards and effects biologically, long and short term, then we can start a new thread.   We should keep it radio related. : ) Yeah, radiometrics.  A lot of supposed cancers and stuff might be more related to genetics, personal evolutionary family trees, growth hormones in modern hot house raised beef...  who really knows yet? Lots of papers out there, no real consensus. We work toward cures on a long and torturous path. So I'm willing to learn.
Hope I go quick !
'3RSW, P.E.
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RICK  *W3RSW*
Steve - WB3HUZ
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« Reply #57 on: March 23, 2007, 03:30:44 PM »

"By the 80s, 91 of the 220 people who were involved with the film, got cancer.  46 of them died from it (including John Wayne, and actress Susan Hayward).  Under normal circumstances no more than 30 of the 220 people should have gotten cancer."


This, in an of itself, proves nothing. Are the numbers statistically significant? What sort of lifestyles did these people lead (smoking, diet, etc)? Too many other variables invovled, it seems to me, to draw any sort of conclusion.
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WA1GFZ
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« Reply #58 on: March 23, 2007, 06:17:08 PM »

Just the fact that they were hollywood people trashes the test.
My daughter knows a girl who's grand mother in Japan  was under the blast and still alive. I would think they were dirty bombs looking at their size and yield.
I'm kind of sorry we didn't do a little above ground over tora bora....would have saved a lot of money.
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