[Elecraft] Man Hospitalized - related incident

Sat Feb 13 22:07:04 EST 2010

Some relaxation time in this world of brutes have never harmed a person. It's a hobby first !
Cheers
Philippe A65BI
K3#3616

*Elecraft, by Hams, for Hams...What else !

>>> Radio Amateur N5GE <n5ge at n5ge.com> 10-02-2010 19:26 >>>
On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:16:02 EST, K4IA at aol.com wrote:

Enough.  This is not an audition reflector for comedians.

Please take it off line.

Thanks,

Tom, N5GE

n5ge at n5ge.com 
K3 #806 with SUB RX, K3 #1055, PR6,
XV144, XV432, KRC2,
W1, 2 W2's and other small kits

1 K144XV on order

http://www.n5ge.com 
http://www.swotrc.net 

>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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