glad everything is working hi hi.  what an adventure. 73, Barb
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Louis Kim Kline" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 12:26 AM
Subject: A Bad Scare


> Hi.
>
> Earlier in the week, I bought a Mirage B5018G amplifier, and today I
> decided to hook it up.  I had gotten someone to eyeball the connectors, 
> and
> I put braille labels on the connectors to keep them straight once my 
> friend
> described the back panel layout.
>
> Tonight, I decided to hook it up, and after putting wire ends on the power
> leads to facilitate connecting it to a power supply, I noticed that I
> didn't have the loads balanced very well between the two power
> supplies.  So I started shuffling radios around until I had a better
> distribution of current loads on the two power supplies in my
> station.  Unfortunately I hit a snag when I started reconnecting radios
> after swapping them around on the two supplies--nothing on the Astron 
> RS35M
> seemed to be working.  I was getting pretty frantic as the inoperative
> radios included my Kenwood TW4000A, my Kenwood TS790A, my Kenwood TM3530,
> my Ten Tec Argonaut 509 and a couple of DSP filters.  After disconnecting
> things, I discovered that the TW4000A was working when it was the only
> thing on the power supply.  The supply stayed up as I started connecting
> various things until I got to the TM3530 whereupon the power supply
> immediately shut down again.
>
> I keep my polarities straight by putting either a piece of electrical tape
> or cable ties on the negative lead, but I smelled a rat with the '3530
> because I had purchased it used from another blind ham.  So I disconnected
> it and ran next door to the neighbor's house to find out what color the
> wire with the piece of tape on it was.  Sure enough, it was
> red.  Fortunately, I didn't smell any smoke, and I was hoping that the
> reason the supply shut down was because there was a diode connected acros
> the power leads to short them when reverse polarity was applied.  Two
> thought were running through my mind--what a pain in the rear it was going
> to be if I had lost the power supply,and how much fun I would have trying
> to find another 220 MHz radio at this stage of the game.
>
> I changed the tape on the TM3530 cord to be consistent with the remainder
> of the wiring in my station, and figured that I had little to lose by
> trying to hook it up again.  Fortunately when I reversed the leads
> everything was working again.  I can't figure out why I didn't blow the
> fuses in the TM3530 though.  I was surprised that the over current
> circuitry in the Astron worked like it was supposed to, because I have
> destroyed a couple of older Astron supplies by accidentally shorting them.
>
> By the way, has anyone found a color probe that is sensitive enough to 
> pick
> up the color of the insulation on a piece of wire?  That would have saved
> me a lot of grief today.
>
> 73, de Lou K2LKK
>
>
>
> Louis Kim Kline
> A.R.S. K2LKK
> Home e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
> Work e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
> Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753
>