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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 11-15-2000, 07:38 PM:
 
A while ago I got a call from the wife of the owner of the area cinema and dinner theater to please come quickly as they had a big problem. When I arrived I found Jim in the office looking like he had just been beaten. He seems one of the lamps had been slow to start so had been opening the lamp housing & thumping the circuit board with his finger. It had been this way for about 2 weeks, but that nite he made contact with the starter voltage. It threw him against the tower & turned it over, pulled everything loose. When customers complained that the movie hadn't started, wife went to the booth and found him out on the floor and gave him a swift kick in the butt for taking a nap before she realized what had happened. A quick thinking employee gave cpr and saved his dumb ass. We got everything put back together just in time for the late show. Just another night in the booth.
 
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 11-15-2000, 07:45 PM:
 
I always say, "Now, I've seen EVERYTHING!"

And EVERY time I say that, no sooner do the words come out of my mouth, and I see something else!

People will never cease to amaze me!
 


Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 11-15-2000, 10:55 PM:
 
I've got an even dummer story.....

I was so proud of my booth at the Drive-In in Peterborough, Ontario. It was after all, the first booth of which I was in charge.

A couple of times a week, I would stay after work (on my own time) to mop and wax the tile floor to a beautiful shine. The doorway to the booth opened to the concession stand, so anyone could look in. One had to keep up appearances, after all.

The door was long since removed, but a short chain, and sign, hung across the opening with the words "No Admittance" (although I sometimes found that the ushers had taped a "Do not feed the monkey" sign over it).

Every piece of chrome on the lamp-house and projector were regularly polished with Brasso.

The sound system was a Western Electric W5-19A tube-type with the power amps near the bottom. The 807 mercury-vapor rectifier tubes and output tubes were quite visable through a small grille in the front of the unit.

Naturally, I had polished not only the glass tubes but the white porcelain plate-caps to perfection too. (They did look rather "cool" with the mercury-vapor tubes glowing blue and pulsing in time to the sound).

As I say, I was quite proud of this booth, thus it was distressing for me to notice that one of the plate caps was not on quite straight. No big problem, even though the show was running, I could straighten it with a long screwdriver poked through the grille.

I didn't blow a fuse or lose sound, but 1400 volts can be quite a nasty experience when you have a change-over coming up.


 


Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 11-16-2000, 06:49 AM:
 
Hey, cool Rick, the "Mustang"! I have some pictures, but it's the only DI around me that I've never attended. (Dated a girl once who's dad had a GTO ragtop, I wanted to go to the Mustang, but she couldn't get the car, and we broke up, coincidence????? )

Peterborough seems to be going along okay despite the new 11-plex indoor. We heard alot more promotion of it on the radio this year.
 


Posted by Jeff Stricker (Member # 224) on 11-16-2000, 01:27 PM:
 
Careful Dave, 1400 V is really lethal. Never touch plate caps of tubes or anyother place suspected of having high voltage until power is turned off and you have verified that the HV filter caps are discharged. Do this with a voltmeter, or at a minimum always short these points to ground using a well insulated tool.

Do not trust that the filter caps will discarge by themselves (a few good men have been killed over the years when a bleeder resistor opened in a unit and didn't do its job of discharging the filter caps).

I don't want to sound like I'm preaching, but I once worked with a guy whose assistant was killed in an AM broadcast transmitter when he made the fatal assumtion that the HV was discharged. This fella saw the whole thing happen, but was powerless to save the victim. Made a lasting impression!!
 


Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 11-19-2000, 05:25 PM:
 
>>The 807 mercury-vapor rectifier tubes<<

um... 807s are beam-power tubes, not rectifiers... Perhaps you were thinking of 83s or 866s?

Aaron

 






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