[Elecraft] OT: Transformer oil in DL's

[Alan Bloom]

When was the Heath Cantenna introduced?  I know it was already old news
when I got started in 1968.  I found a reference to it in an old 73
article in the January 1963 issue:

The Heath Cantenna - 73 gets out the can opener ........ W3UZN  62

Had PCBs already been discontinued by then?

> It doesn't "make it right", but we had transformer shop employees
> that literally stood chest deep in the stuff inside large substation
> transformers when they were overhauled or a tap needed changed.

Although it's probably a good thing that PCBs have been discontinued I have always suspected that the hysteria about them is a bit overdone.

Al N1AL


On Tue, 2010-03-02 at 19:44 +0000, Ken Kopp wrote:
> As a (retired) career power company employee I can say with 
> reasonable certainty that the "transformer oil" that was available 
> to --most-- scrounging hams since the introduction of the Cantenna 
> was -unlikely- to contain PCB's.  
> 
> At least in the circumstances familiar to me, PCB-containing
> transformer oil was mostly long gone by the time the Cantenna
> was introduced.  It was certainly gone "as new" out of the barrel,
> but did remain in transformers already in place, but few if any
> hams received their oil from a transformer. (:-)
> 
> It doesn't "make it right", but we had transformer shop employees
> that literally stood chest deep in the stuff inside large substation
> transformers when they were overhauled or a tap needed changed.
> 
> 73! Ken Kopp - K0PP
>      ElecraftCovers at rfwave.net