[Elecraft] Touch lamps

[Mel Farrer]

Many years ago, I build a full size vertical for 160 M with 19 full length radials, see, "W6SAI HF antenna handbook, section 6-17".  OK so far.  In testing, I found the ground currents and the close in field substantial at 1 KW.  One of the storage building was about 60 feet from the base of the tower and one night the wife was out there cleaning up some gardening efforts right next to a rack that had 8 foot flourescent tubes, Are you ready?  

I keyed the amplifier and called CQ.  At the end of my CQ, there was my wife standing in the doorway and looked like a ghost of the scarecrow with some liquid dripping off her head and covered with lawn seed she was putting away.  

Needless to say the tubes lit off by the RF had startled her.  We didn't talk about that for a long time, until the next Halloween.  I keyed the transmitter with a long memory CQ and then you can see me with a sheet over my head running around the back yard between the houses waving 8 foot tubes that were looking like Skywalker and his light sabers.  The neighbor kids didn't come to our house that night.

Memories of times past,

Mel, K6KBE



--- On Tue, 12/1/09, Robert Fish <rwfish at comcast.net> wrote:

From: Robert Fish <rwfish at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Touch lamps
To: "Duncan Carter" <dc at vibrotek.com>
Cc: "Ken Kopp" <k0pp at rfwave.net>, "Elecraft Reflector" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 1:48 PM

Hi Guys,

A few years ago I was up late at night and decided to send a couple of 
late night CQ's on 40 meters. On about my third CQ
my wife appeared at the door to my shack looking very upset. She had 
gone to bed a couple of hours earlier and was awakened
by the touch lamps blinking on either side of our bed in what was a very 
dark room. We had just installed the lamps for reading a
few weeks before and neither of us had been back there while I was 
transmitting so we didn't know they did this. My wife doesn't
know much about radio so the first thing she thought wasn't RFI. She was 
convinced our house was under siege from demonic spirits.
It took awhile before she saw the humor in this episode. Of course every 
time I think about it it makes me smile.

Bob  K6GGO

> I had two tough controlled reading lamps in my bedroom.  They didn't 
> cause rfi but they changed on/off state each time I transmitted.  
> Ferrite clamps didn't change the sensitivity of the lamps to RF.  I 
> replaced them with manual switch controlled lamps; my #2 son who is not 
> a ham has them now.
>
> 73m Dunc, W5DC
>
>   
>   

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