[Elecraft] Man Hospitalized

[David Y.]

Bravo!

Dave W7AQK


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Al Lorona" <alorona at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 4:22 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] Man Hospitalized


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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