Had my palm resting on my buddies tuner when he was loading up on 40 meters. Havn't had a bite like that for a very long time.
-
You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.
Forgot how bad RF burns hurt
- Thread starter Mudfoot
- Start date
Same Thing LOL. I was tuning a friends antenna. He decided to key up and talk while my hand was on the antenna. Ouch.
Worst I ever got was at an AM site on 960KHz., CHNS in Halifax which is now on the FM band. I was working on the tower lighting chokes and everything at that site was hot with RF. It was a 10 Kw site and located on VERY poor rocky ground. The radials were literally laid on top of the rocks and half those were stolen over the years. When you were picking up metal tools in the ATU hut you had to grab them quickly and firmly to avoid an arc. Unbeknownst to me one choke was shorted from the tower side to the AC power side and I touched the AC power side which basically put me across the 10Kw output. Now I probably need not tell you what reactance voltages are like that low. It literally arced from my hand to the choke and quite literally fried a spot on my fingers which took many months to completely heal. It turned quite hard and itched like hell for months afterwards. I have had lots of little RF burns from 1 Kw AM sites however and although they stung like hell they were nothing compared to the one from that 10 Kw site. 
When I was at General Dynamics, I put 5 KV thru my left hand while activating a big TOOBS getter material.
You are lucky it only went thru your hand and not the rest of you. DC like that can indeed do some damage but RF not only gives you a shock it fries and burns the skin and tissues much like a hot frying pan with a little oil in it. It is kind of like being electrocuted while being deep fried at the same time.
i have worked in the telcom industry for years cell towers microvave comms never been bit and never wish to
I must have lived a charmed life so far. No RF burns but just one bad dc shock. The shock wasn't that bad but my reaction to it caused most of my injury, reaching up inside a sps-10 radar console needing to take resistance measurement on the crt. I did discharged the high voltage and the crt anode as well with a high voltage grounding lead.
Reached up through the chassis with the probes of a PSM4. It arced to the probe and my finger. I yanked my hand back and was shredded by all of the sharp metal in side the console. Ruined the meter and my confidence for a while.
Reached up through the chassis with the probes of a PSM4. It arced to the probe and my finger. I yanked my hand back and was shredded by all of the sharp metal in side the console. Ruined the meter and my confidence for a while.