[Elecraft] Man Hospitalized - related incident

[Ken Chandler]

I suppose victim was yaesu'ed into buying it off ms ellie craft...hi

Ken..G0ORH

Sent from my iPhone




On 10 Feb 2010, at 11:16, K4IA at aol.com wrote:

> In a related incident, another ham-radio  enthusiast, Hezekiah  
> Bambershoot,
> of Ft Jackson, was arrested at police  headquarters for disorderly  
> conduct
> and assaulting a police officer.   Bambershoot initially came to
> headquarters reporting he had been victimized  buying a radio from a  
> mysterious
> Californian named Ellie Craft.
>
> Ms Craft allegedly took advantage of Bambershoot by claiming to  have
> down-conversion which he mistook for a syndrome of the same name.    
> Bambershoot
> was happy with his purchase until his friends told him how foolish   
> he had
> been.
>
> According to Police spokesman, Ken Wood, "The poor  man was  
> distraught and
> raving about roofing filters.  What the heck are  they?"  The arrest  
> report
> filed by fellow-ham and officer, Ike Com, listed  Bambershoot's  
> original
> complaint as "radio mushiness" but notes, "I told him all  my radios  
> sound
> mushy but he was upset he couldn't hear it on his.  When we  tried  
> to calm him
> down he became unruly."
>
> Su Yae, an EMT called to the  scene, defended Bambershoot saying,  
> "When I
> got there he was on the floor  repeating 'A, G, C, Slope, Pre and A  
> T T' over
> and over.  He was  babbling.  They claimed he was clicking his heels  
> but I
> didn't hear  anything.  The poor man was just frustrated because his
> purchase had so  many faults he couldn't find.  I feel sorry for him."
>
> Bambershoot is being held on $10,000 bond.  Police are still   
> searching for
> the elusive Ellie Craft.
>
> Buck
> k4ia
>
> In a  message dated 2/9/2010 6:22:54 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> alorona at sbcglobal.net  writes:
> MAN HOSPITALIZED WITH ANXIETY OVER HAM RADIO
>
> Southland County  Morning News
>
> Southland -- A ham radio enthusiast was admitted to County  Hospital  
> today
> suffering from anxiety over what he perceived as serious problems   
> with his
> new radio, authorities reported Tuesday.
>
> Irv Stumpo, 55, of East  Pharsalia, checked into the emergency room  
> "in
> distress," according to the nurse  on watch just before midnight  
> Tuesday. "He
> was perspiring profusely and moaning  over and over, 'My K-3 is no  
> good, no
> good'," said Paula Stevens, a nurse at  County. "He had enormous  
> headphones
> clamped tightly on his head which we had a  ton of difficulty  
> removing, and
> he was also wearing ear buds," she said. "Isn't  that strange? He  
> was half
> incoherent but kept mumbling something about dynamic  range and audio
> artifacts. I have no idea what that means."
>
> Randy LaHood,  a fifteen year emergency room veteran, said that  
> during an
> examination Mr.  Stumpo went into considerable technical detail  
> about a radio
> he had recently  purchased from Elecraft, a company that makes high- 
> end ham
> radios. "He began by  explaining that his radio had 'noisy receiver'  
> and
> 'mushy signals'," explained  Dr. LaHood. "From what I could gather,  
> he had
> just spent a lot of money on a  radio and hadn't actually noticed  
> any of these
> problems himself, but others in a  internet group kept putting the  
> ideas
> into his head," he said. Over a course of  weeks, Stumpo became  
> distraught over
> various imperfections in what Dr. LaHood  said was a classic case of  
> the
> power of suggestion.
>
> The hospital records  also said that Stumpo drew mathematical  
> figures he
> labeled "AGC slope", and  filled four pages by writing "AGC off", "Ear
> Isolation" and "K3" repeatedly.  Hospital officials could not  
> explain the cryptic
> scribblings.
>
> Dr. LaHood  said that Stumpo repeated the phrase "mushy AGC" for at  
> least
> four hours while  he waited for treatment. Other patients who were  
> in the
> waiting room at the time  moved to the other side of the room for  
> fear he might
> endanger them. J. B.  Archer was one of those in the waiting room at  
> the
> time who had brought in his  twelve-year-old son with a basketball  
> injury.
> "Good ol' boy was pretty upset, I  just told him it would be  
> alright, but he
> wouldn't let up with 'I can't pick out  the pileups'. I thought he  
> had been
> involved in a big accident on the highway.  Then he said other  
> things like
> 'the impedance of my headphones' and 'ride the R.  F. gain'. Then he  
> started
> with 'diversity problem' and I thought maybe he was  having trouble  
> with
> racial relations. He was in terrible shape, I'll tell you  that."
>
> Rick Culver, president of a local ham radio club, told the Morning   
> News in
> a telephone interview, "A lot of these guys spend five or ten thousand
> dollars on a radio they think is going to be absolutely perfect in  
> every
> conceiveable way. When it's not, they go into a panic buying lots of  
> other
> accessories which promise to fix the issue they think they're  
> having. This is
> followed by a deep buyer's remorse." He went on to recount a recent  
> case which
> epitomized this effect. "We had one guy who had a radio that put out  
> 95
> watts  instead of 100. He went berserk and ended up smashing his  
> radio with a
> baseball  bat. Not everyone gets that violent, but he never would have
> worried about it if  it hadn't been for an internet forum that  
> drummed it into
> his head twenty four  seven that his radio was broken."
>
> Hospital officials said that Stumpo was  treated with sedatives and is
> being kept for  observation.
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