I'm just glad I didn't lose another radio. About 2 weeks ago, my FT-991 (not 991A) smoked out, there is a burn mark on the board, where an inductor once was. I knew it was only a matter of time.
I took my bro's electrical work off line, never to resume the transport of electrons until they can flow properly.
I live in a town where there are a lot of "old names" everyone knows ( Meaning a lot of first-cousins had lots of children with 11 fingers). Also means you get a town "Electrical Inspector" (Honk! Honk!) to issue a certificate of occupancy (to the 'Right People') for the price of a small Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Over this past year, there were one or two QRZ-discussions on folks with electrical anomalies-- my own concerns included--often having to do with improperly engineered or executed electrical-service neutral connections. In the process of replacing some outlets and switches myself moving-in 20 years ago, found lots of electrical work looking like had been performed by a 13 year-old. Missing grounds, total nonsense. I'm a smart guy, a handy guy, but my personal rule is I don't touch the Main Service panel. Do yourselves a favor--If you haven't ever had the integrity of your Main Service checked and an overall evaluation of your electrics--do it soon. And any house wired-up in the 80's quite likely uses aluminum wiring, and if so it's probably poorly installed due to industry-wide sub-standard specialized installation training. According to the NFPA which collaborates with the National Electrical Code, incorporated into regulation by reference in most jurisdictions, 57% of electrical fires are in "Electrical distribution, lighting, and power transfer". And electrical fires are the second-most cause of house fires. A couple hundred bucks might save your family's lives. 73
A construction company broke my neutral from the pole while working at the street, and didn't report it. I found out something was wrong when appliances with line transformers, such as an AC smoke detector, VCR's, clock radios, doorbell transformer, and TV's, started to fail, and in the case of the smoke detector, started to burn internally. When I discovered the broken neutral, the power company said "Pull your main breaker NOW, I'll wait!" He explained that with out a neutral, the voltage reference is lost, and the results are unpredictable. twenty minutes later, it was fixed. The contractor's insurance paid a few thousands for the damage to my property.
Had something similar happen in Korea. went on the roof one day to check out the end insulators on my 80 dipole. I was holding on to the handrail of the roof ladder and touched the end of the dipole wire. SHOCK! I thought WTHO? So I went inside, got my fluke and measured 80v AC between the end of the dipole leg and the handrail. The radio was off but plugged in. It must have been flowing around the inner chassis of the radio. When I unplugged the radio all was good. In Korea most everything is 220, except some rental houses where Americans lived. The used some kind of weird transformer to put 110 in the wall outlets. The transformer was mounted on a shelf above the front door outside so that the power readers could read how much I used for billing. Bad wiring for sure. This same house was made of poured cement into forms and when they built it they didn't include conduit in the walls for wiring. So they bolted metal boxes on the wall and, you won't believe this but it's true, ran 2 wires to each outlet and taped then to the walls, then wallpapered over them! You could follow the wire lump under the wallpaper from that transformer to each outlet! I mover into a more modern neighborhood a short time later and had no more problems.
When I lived in Nevis I was in a 'white people' rental house and had one of those transformers. They were commonplace. Nevis used the old 2-wire 240v distribution. The whole house was wired US-style. When I built the cable tv headend I had to do the same thing since it was all US equipment. Much new construction had both 120 and 240v outlets throughout the house. Some newer areas actually have US style split phase line transformers nowadays. Never had any problems nor did I look for any!
I know, it's too much to digest. AC traveled from a 'turned off' PS, (but still plugged in) into the radio and out to the antenna. I did take a good shock when I had the coax in one hand and the antenna switch in the other!
Many of my peers in this thread suggested I call it in. I did and the Edison guy was at the door in about 30 min. He did run a test on the nearly 60 year old breaker panel and said 'all is well' and it was, more or less. I don't know what my departed Dad or Big Brother did, but in this house we flip some of the the light switches Bass Akwards to turn the light on, I think the rest of the world has it correct.
