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Warning! Dangerous Advice in QST 10/2011 3-500ZG Article
- Thread starter Moleculo
- Start date
From my perspective it's good there is an ARRL.
.....I think they have to much to cover with the people they have and the money to work with.
.....It seems they are nearly totally involved in defending an amateur right to erect antennas and towers, saving the bands from commerical intrusion, losing parts or all of a band in the uhf region, going to the IAU to fight for more spectrum and still try to connect with the membership plus other things going on with the US FCC and states that keep trying to make rules that go against the amateur operations.
......I can see where the membership has a position of 'what do they do for me' on a more personal level.
......Our FCC amateur enforcement has been very poor for some 15 years and getting worse.
......The ARRL has no enforcement powers.
......Many people still blame the ARRL for the no code situation.
......It was not the ARRL but gov. pressure on the FCC to allow more people into the hobby.
......The FCC turned over the administration of Ham radio to the ARRL, so good there there but they have to do it as they are told to do.
*
......I hear the UK association is in trouble but not many details except I hear about power stuggle and corruption with the officials.
......Try to look at the bigger picture.
......If one does not stay in touch, you cannot see the picture at all.
If we had no representation all these years , where would we be now?
.....I think they have to much to cover with the people they have and the money to work with.
.....It seems they are nearly totally involved in defending an amateur right to erect antennas and towers, saving the bands from commerical intrusion, losing parts or all of a band in the uhf region, going to the IAU to fight for more spectrum and still try to connect with the membership plus other things going on with the US FCC and states that keep trying to make rules that go against the amateur operations.
......I can see where the membership has a position of 'what do they do for me' on a more personal level.
......Our FCC amateur enforcement has been very poor for some 15 years and getting worse.
......The ARRL has no enforcement powers.
......Many people still blame the ARRL for the no code situation.
......It was not the ARRL but gov. pressure on the FCC to allow more people into the hobby.
......The FCC turned over the administration of Ham radio to the ARRL, so good there there but they have to do it as they are told to do.
*
......I hear the UK association is in trouble but not many details except I hear about power stuggle and corruption with the officials.
......Try to look at the bigger picture.
......If one does not stay in touch, you cannot see the picture at all.
If we had no representation all these years , where would we be now?
It (ARRL) does represent the amateurs, they do lobby for rights and privileges of the hobby as you stated. On their QST magazine it does leave a lot to be desired, More advertising than their are articles. But they do have to make $$ to still have an active organization so it is what it is.
There is never a reason to defeat a critical safety protection system and activate lethal voltages with protective covers removed. Anything determined with the cover removed can be more safely accomplished with the cover in place, or with power removed. This is true for all problems.
"Dead" wrong! A play on words of course. However, it could definitely kill someone that has no experiecne but there are DEFINITELY times when it is tatally necessary for a professional engineer to defeat safty features in question. If he has never seen a time then he hasn't done much techwork with this type of device.
"Dead" wrong! A play on words of course. However, it could definitely kill someone that has no experiecne but there are DEFINITELY times when it is tatally necessary for a professional engineer to defeat safty features in question. If he has never seen a time then he hasn't done much techwork with this type of device.
Not really.
When dealing with HV PS if troubleshooting everything can be done by other methods instead of applying power to the circuit.
I will agree pulling the cover off and putting it back on can be time consuming, and a pain depending on what you are working on. Example an amplifier that has a slide in case instead of a two piece cover. But any maintenance can be done without defeating a safety interlock if one wants to take the time to do it correctly.
Of course this would require having proper test equipment and associated parts required to perform the maintenance action.
I still disagree. I used to service broadcast gear. The transmitters would inhibit the HV as soon as any door or if the meter panel was open.The plate voltage meter was connected to the HV supply so that is why the meter panel had an interlock on it. One time I had a startup problem where the HV current overload relay would activate as soon as the HV was turned on. Obviously there was either a short or an arc somewhere. I needed to be able to see inside the various parts of the TX while at the same time turning on the HV to get a visual of where the arc was coming from. There were no faults with the HV off. Zero. Nadda. Nothing wrong at all. The problem ended up being a ceramic disc capacitor in the audio section that would remain open to DC in the off state but would arc to ground when HV was applied and only when HV was applied. The location of the capacitor made it impossible to see unless the front safety screen was removed. Oh yeah, it also only showed up with the lights off as the filaments from the four 833C's were creating too much light inside the TX cabinet. So with one hand on the light switch and the other on the PLATES ON button I was finally able to locate and resolve the problem.
Yes, there are times when defeating safety interlocks is the only way to get the job done. A megger would not provide enough current to arc and you would have no idea where to start looking with one anyway.
Waverider and I will continue to disagree on this matter but having been there on more than one occasion I can see the need. Not everything is as cut and dried as he would like to think. No disrespect meant by that waverider. It's just that my 29 years experience has shown me that and it has also shown me the way to properly and safely handle such situations so lets just agree to disagree on this. OK?
I still disagree. I used to service broadcast gear. The transmitters would inhibit the HV as soon as any door or if the meter panel was open.The plate voltage meter was connected to the HV supply so that is why the meter panel had an interlock on it. One time I had a startup problem where the HV current overload relay would activate as soon as the HV was turned on. Obviously there was either a short or an arc somewhere. I needed to be able to see inside the various parts of the TX while at the same time turning on the HV to get a visual of where the arc was coming from. There were no faults with the HV off. Zero. Nadda. Nothing wrong at all. The problem ended up being a ceramic disc capacitor in the audio section that would remain open to DC in the off state but would arc to ground when HV was applied and only when HV was applied. The location of the capacitor made it impossible to see unless the front safety screen was removed. Oh yeah, it also only showed up with the lights off as the filaments from the four 833C's were creating too much light inside the TX cabinet. So with one hand on the light switch and the other on the PLATES ON button I was finally able to locate and resolve the problem.
Yes, there are times when defeating safety interlocks is the only way to get the job done. A megger would not provide enough current to arc and you would have no idea where to start looking with one anyway.
Waverider and I will continue to disagree on this matter but having been there on more than one occasion I can see the need. Not everything is as cut and dried as he would like to think. No disrespect meant by the waverider. It's just that my 29 years experience has shown me that and it has also shown me the way to properly and safely handle such situations so lets just agree to disagree on this. OK?
Agreed.
I have done the same thing in HV radar systems, had to turn the lights out, remove covers to see where the mystery arc was coming from. Was not visible with covers on. I was actually the tech performing maintenance and it was by no means the approved method, but it had to get repaired. Turned out to be an hv input filter. No way on earth could it be seen with any covers on.
There was always the unapproved secret stash of tools, jumpers connectors etc etc to allow the tech to bypass safety interlocks. Of course when Quality assurance came around to do inspections or spot checks those tools found a proper storage place.
In the class room I would have been required to teach the proper method, remove any suspected component. Submit them to their operating voltages on a test bench and not in the gear itself.
That is why the last statement. If the proper test equipment is available. If it is not available then a safety procedure should be there to follow.
Class room versus real world almost never agree. I will say this though the military in general is getting better and better all the time about getting the class room and the field to jive still not perfect but they are getting better. It is important to teach by the Book in some area like the Military where they want the class taught word for word from the book. I am not kidding either word for word. The problem though is that it does not teach people to critically think for themselves. What happens when an Airforce tech. get sent to repair electronics for Army Special Forces and they bring back a piece of gear with bullet holes init and no new board and it is a mission critical tool???? They are told to fix it ASAP where do they look in the text book for that info....I knew a guy that this happened too. Nothing in college or in the Airforce Electronic Repair School prepared him for that! So the book is a great place to start but critical thinking and the ability to adapt and find creative solutions is far more useful in the real world. I have like wise had Nurse's that where top of their class but worthless as shit at doing their job's.....They could spit out the right answere's all day long but they had no grasp of how to apply that knowledge and theory that makes for a very dangerous nurse or doctor!
Life has risk and if you take away all risk then life is not worth living. The difference is you want people to make well informed educated decisions about if a certain amount of risk is worth the benefit at the time.That requires the ability to critically think for ones self and some sort of perspective on what is gained weighted against the potential risk. Trust me when I say no one would want their mechanic to use nothing but diagnostic gear in an attempt to figure out what is wrong with the vehicle not running. Most of the things a mechanic needs to know are delivered through his hearing, his sense of touch and smell along with a test drive at times. I can just imagine a mechanic tearing your engine apart just to find out a lifter was bad or a rod bearing was bad because he could not power the car up to listen to it and diagnose the likely problem. So I would never support the idea of a hobbie and yes amateur radio is a hobby for most not their job for most to have all the technical savy or tools that broadcast engineers or Electronic Circuit Design Majors would have. Some times turning the lights off removing some cover's and flipping the switch has benefits that far out weight the risk.
I will say this much you would never catch me probing around in a hot tiny metalic box that is most table top 1KW amps. I would turn the unit off find my probe. locations make the hook up stand back and turn the power on. Take my reading, power off, discharge caps relocate my probes and repeat. I am 6 foot 2 and built like a professional football player. For me the risk of working in a tight location with HV hot is not worth the risk. It is not the HV that bother me but the tight density of the componets it only takes an 1/8 of an inch of hand movement and you just touched something you should not have. touched.
When I worked for the power company we had to double glove and use insulated poles etc......Hell we used to take the temp and humidity if the power levels where high enough so we would know just how likely it might be for a large deadly arc and how far it would likely travel. You would be amazed at how humidity can effect how likely you are to get zapped.
I can not really work inside an RF amp with heavy rubber gloves then heavy leather on top of that with a fiberglass pole and tools at the end. I do where gloves though when using a multimeter with high voltage. I have seen people tap a meter that had high voltage running through it and get zapped. So even though it likely does not good I always wear Nitrile Mechanic's Gloves when working with active high voltage just in case......I do not trust any meter manufactures design to keep me naked hand safe should something go wrong.
Life has risk and if you take away all risk then life is not worth living. The difference is you want people to make well informed educated decisions about if a certain amount of risk is worth the benefit at the time.That requires the ability to critically think for ones self and some sort of perspective on what is gained weighted against the potential risk. Trust me when I say no one would want their mechanic to use nothing but diagnostic gear in an attempt to figure out what is wrong with the vehicle not running. Most of the things a mechanic needs to know are delivered through his hearing, his sense of touch and smell along with a test drive at times. I can just imagine a mechanic tearing your engine apart just to find out a lifter was bad or a rod bearing was bad because he could not power the car up to listen to it and diagnose the likely problem. So I would never support the idea of a hobbie and yes amateur radio is a hobby for most not their job for most to have all the technical savy or tools that broadcast engineers or Electronic Circuit Design Majors would have. Some times turning the lights off removing some cover's and flipping the switch has benefits that far out weight the risk.
I will say this much you would never catch me probing around in a hot tiny metalic box that is most table top 1KW amps. I would turn the unit off find my probe. locations make the hook up stand back and turn the power on. Take my reading, power off, discharge caps relocate my probes and repeat. I am 6 foot 2 and built like a professional football player. For me the risk of working in a tight location with HV hot is not worth the risk. It is not the HV that bother me but the tight density of the componets it only takes an 1/8 of an inch of hand movement and you just touched something you should not have. touched.
When I worked for the power company we had to double glove and use insulated poles etc......Hell we used to take the temp and humidity if the power levels where high enough so we would know just how likely it might be for a large deadly arc and how far it would likely travel. You would be amazed at how humidity can effect how likely you are to get zapped.
I can not really work inside an RF amp with heavy rubber gloves then heavy leather on top of that with a fiberglass pole and tools at the end. I do where gloves though when using a multimeter with high voltage. I have seen people tap a meter that had high voltage running through it and get zapped. So even though it likely does not good I always wear Nitrile Mechanic's Gloves when working with active high voltage just in case......I do not trust any meter manufactures design to keep me naked hand safe should something go wrong.
There is a reason to bypass the safety deadlocks?
Please do so whilst the OSHA inspector is standing in your shop and explain that to him/her.
We "had" a guy working on a battery charging rack system for forklifts. The tech 'bypassed" the safety and the entire rack, over 4000 lbs landed on him. This was a few days before Thanksgiving last year, not that the date matters, but you did see where I typed "had", he is no longer around to explain why he did bypass a safety.
OSHA spends A LOT of time at your facility when there is a fatality. They are not bad people, they have a job, and they do it well.
So, I agree, there is no SAFE reason to bypass a safety device. Convenience is not a reason.
Please do so whilst the OSHA inspector is standing in your shop and explain that to him/her.
We "had" a guy working on a battery charging rack system for forklifts. The tech 'bypassed" the safety and the entire rack, over 4000 lbs landed on him. This was a few days before Thanksgiving last year, not that the date matters, but you did see where I typed "had", he is no longer around to explain why he did bypass a safety.
OSHA spends A LOT of time at your facility when there is a fatality. They are not bad people, they have a job, and they do it well.
So, I agree, there is no SAFE reason to bypass a safety device. Convenience is not a reason.
Yes OSHA, in uniform we had NAVOSH.
I instructed advanced electronic classes for a few years at the end of that tour I went back out into the Fleet, and some of the techs I instructed were working for me.
Talk about living with what you create. How do you tell a tech you trained not to do it by the book?
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