[Elecraft] Dumb mistakes I have made

[Anderson, Eric F]

Experience it is said is the act of surviving Bad Judgement.  With that
said, about 30 years ago I was a cherry "First Class Radiotelephone" pulling
transmitter watches at the other 50KW AM station in New Orleans.  They had a
pair of RCA BT50H's and yes those rectifiers glowed purple at full chat. The
chief engineer began to show me all those old bad chief's habits that save
time. The mains were 70KV lines that entered the back of the building and
routed into the transformer cage to step down to 12.5KV. Above this chain
link cage was the aux. power relay that was suppose to change the
transmitter from 50KW to 5 KW. It would sometimes stick, the cure was to
stand on a ladder and poke at it with a broomstick. I already see some of
you shaking your head. After several weeks it occurred to me that this was
not good and the relay should be repaired. After several more weeks of
harping it was decided that we would go dark Sunday afternoon and LPL would
deenergize the line to facilitate the repairs.
Chief Don fell off the ladder Saturday evening.

Eric Anderson
W4FSA