[Elecraft] stupid question - likely ot

[Joe Malloy]

Ah, yes, what was the stupidest thing I ever did as a 
ham...lessee...there's so much to choose from.  I'll start with the time 
when I built my first transmitter (a Lafayette KT-390 "Starflite") from 
a kit and accidentally swapped the two different three prong terminal 
strips--one of which had a grounded center lug and the other of which 
didn't.  When I fired 'er up, I was very pleased to note that it seemed 
to work fine but there seemed to be an oddity that I eventually (after 
many shocking experiences!) traced to the fact that it depended whether 
you put the two-prong AC line cord in one way or t'other. The "engineer" 
in me was careful (ha!) to usually plug it in the "correct" way but I 
wondered why they hadn't warned me about that in the manual...Well, come 
to find out, it *does* make a difference which type of three-pronged 
terminal strip goes where and that I had (you guessed it!) put the one 
that had the center lug grounded in the *AC  input*. 

That's just the first one...then there was the time I got quite the 
shock from the B+ line on my college radio transmitter (I was the 
"chief" engineer -- we were great at using grandiose sounding titles 
just because they did so in the real radio -- oh, did I tell you I had 
earned a first class FCC radiotelephone license by then?)  But I digress...

They say that confession is good for the soul...

Yours in electronics experience,

Joe, W2RBA