I was responding to a former JHS classmate of mine, referring to the placement of our radios, frequently located in our kitchens, so we could listen to the latest Elvis tunes, while getting ready for school. This is one of the stories....
Tom
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Ours was in the kitchen too... We'd gotten it from my "city" grandparents in Topeka. Once upon a time, when I was getting really interested in radio and electronics, and doing "BC Band DX'ing", I'd tune around at night, and see what stations I could pick up from far away.
I took it downstairs, as I wanted to put an earphone jack in it... I had the circuit from Popular Mechanics, and it was designed so that when you plugged in the headphones, it'd cut off the speaker.
Well - there was just one little tiny thing... In those days, the speakers didn't have a permanent magnet in the rear of them... it was an ELECTROmagnet, which also acted as a "smoothing filter" for the high-voltage in the radio... I hooked the jack up to the WRONG wires of course, and when I went to plug my earphones in, I shocked the living snot out of myself... it was about 350 volts, and I almost ..... my pants, and it scared the heck out of me. I was SURE I was gonna' die, so remembering my Boy Scout training, I lay on the basement steps, head-down, hoping to stave off the inevitable shock, which was sure to follow my folly. That's when Mom... hearing my yelp of terror, opened the basement door, and beheld her tiny young son... lying upside-down on the basement steps, with the radio, splattered on the floor. She simply asked "Are you alright?"... when I answered in the affirmative, she closed the door and nothing more was said.
It was a while longer before I got my earphone jack.April 6, 2008