Boatanchor health hazards :-)

[Doug Hall]

Hi folks,
   I got some boatanchor email from a friend here in town and got a chuckle
out of it, so I'm including it here for your enjoyment. George wouldn't mind
- now that the smoke has cleared he's in a much better mood, and the hair on
his leg will grow back quickly. By the time he got to work today he was even
laughing about it. Well, a little, anyway...

Some background: George (KQ4QM) has been fixing up an old Heathkit DX-40 and
VF-1 VFO. He's making progress, but it has been uphill all the way. After
replacing the front panel, the filter caps, some resistors, and completely
disassembling the VFO for cleaning and repair, he was just getting ready to
put it on the air when the function switch started arcing. Then I got this
email:

_______________________________________
Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 14:45:36 -0400
To: kf4kl at ipass.net
From: George McCrary <geo at ipass.net>
Subject: DX 40 SK

        The 40 may be in big trouble now. That damn switch just arcs all the time.
Even sitting in standby it would start to arc. I decided to give it another
dose of contact cleaner. I ended up with flames literally three feet high.
I burned a patch of hair off my leg. I had to put it out before I could put
out the 40. I don't know if it burned anything up or not. I'm not sure if I
even care. BTW, if it wasn't obvious, I had only switched it from standby to
tune instead of standby to off.

                                                GEO
______________________________________

The thought of somebody having to put out a fire on their leg while flames
leap from the transmitter is almost more than I can take. (Sorry George!)
Anybody else have some boatanchor restoration tales of woe to share? By the
way, I worked George on 20m AM this evening - he was running his HT-32 and
said it didn't catch on fire as much as the DX-40 ;-)
73,
Doug Hall, KF4KL