[GVARC] Field Day disaster story

[Eric Hilding]

FYI...posted to the NCCC Reflector by one of the members.

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Subject: [NCCC] Field Day disaster story

I really shouldnt tell this story on my club but here goes anyway. 

As my son was getting married on the 24th (Field Day Saturday) I had opted out of being 

in charge of FD this year but said I would come out and operate Saturday night and Sunday 

(my wife xxxxxx) and I did. Power for the rigs are supplied by one of our members electric car, 

a converted carmen ghia with about 130 volts worth of deep cycle 6 volt batteries all hooked up 

in series. This worked quite well last year, you simply tap on to any 2 sets of 6 volt batteries 

per each rig beings used and it works great. This year I loaned two of my HF rigs to the FD team 

to help round things out as our club is mostly VHF types. 

Well, after getting my son married and grabbing a thermos full of hot coffee and coats parkas etc 

we headed on out to Field Day. The first thing I observed when I got out of my van was one of my 

HF rigs with smoke pouring out of it (not good). Along side of it was a brand new Kenwood TS 2000 

with smoke coming out it also (both rigs are still dead). I was told everything was working well 

till they switched coax lines and then the coax connector got cherry red with sparks coming out 

of the pl 259 connector. 

I checked voltages and everything looked go so we hooked up some more rigs and worked CW and SSB 

till after midnight and back on at 5 am, some of the best Field Day conditions I have ever experienced 

including European DX. Well, about 9 am we were loosing power on my other still operating rig so I went 

to change batterys (I turned the rig off first, I hooked the power leads into 2 more 6 volt sets and a 

large arc came off the battery. Thinking this wasnt a good sign I went back to the rig and disconected 

everything. I then hooked the power back up came over to the 40 meter station and as the coax brushed 

across the chassis of the rig a lighting bolt jumped out of the connector ( Im a electrician and dont 

like seeing these things). I went over to the other station (a brand new FT-857 Yaesu and it was now 

dead( someone elses rig) The fuse on the negative side had blown. 

With the rig switched off I started to replace the fuse but before I could even get it in the fuse holder 

a lighting bolt of electricity had flashed out of the fuse holder burning my hand and blowing the fuse. 

Buy this time I decided that some investigation was definetly in order. I went back to the other station 

and took a volt reading between the coax and the chassis of the rig. Nothing on the inner conductor but 

on the braid of the coax I was reading 25 volts to the chassis of the turned off rig. I started tracing 

the coax runs and it turned out someone had grounded all coax runs to building steel ( sheet metal) 

creating a ground loop between the differnt battery combinations (all hooked up in series to power the car). 

Result, two fried rigs., and almost several more. The distance between the ground connections on the 

antennas was allmost 50 feet. 

CQ FIELD DAY!

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