Hi folks, just found this site and very happy indeed! Looks great. I have always been facinated by radios and record players. Even from very early years, like when I was just 10 years old I got an old radiogram given to me and proceeded to pull it apart and put it back together. How I survived is still a mystery given that on more than one occasion I felt the belt from high voltage! Anyway, 40 years later I am still tinkering as I still have agreat respect for all things anologue and valve operated. Must have inherited it from my uncle that worked for the CSIRO and helped radar system DC2 plane during WW2.

Welcome to V-R.

Surviving high voltage belts is often a matter of sheer luck. The major one I received from 240 volts as a schoolkid in the science lab taught me to be very respectful of electricity from then onwards. It was courtesy of (unbeknown to me) a hot chassis radio we were playing around with. The chassis was out of its case on the bench. Although it had an aerial wire, there was only a faint signal, so I had the brilliant idea of 'giving it a better earth' by grabbing the water tap on the lab bench sink with my left hand and touching the chassis with the other. So, 240 volts straight across the chest.

Luckily I had used the back of my hand on the chassis so I got out of circuit quickly, but it gave me a hell of a throbbing belt that I still vividly remember and have manged to avoid since -- apart from the odd zap from automotive ignitions which is no fun either.

How about 11 year old, first lessons on physics, how to make a magnet by passing electric current through a metal rod (that's how I heard it!)

went home and removed a bulb from the hallway light. Switched on at the wall and poked a steel chisel into the light fitting.

Ouch!! I'll never forget it.

Good grief!

Following that I'll bet you were as popular at home as I was at age 9 when one day after school, from my box of collected electrical parts, I constructed a power point on a nice piece of wood using a discrete switch and socket of the bakelite type. Think of it as a precursor to the Kambrook power board. It looked very good. So I plugged it into a GPO and applied the power. Next thing the TV goes off and so does the fridge and the kitchen clock is stopped at 3.30pm. Uh, oh.

In my ignorance, I had wired the switch in parallel across the mains, but my immediate problem was that even standing on a chair I couldn't reach the fuse box. The wait between 3.30pm and 6.30pm when the old man came home from work was eternal.

After yelling at me and repairing the fuse, he proceeded to take my box of electrical treasures down to the incinerator and torched the lot. It took me a good 6 months to rebuild my collection, but I figured out series wiring the next day.

After yelling at me and repairing the fuse, he proceeded to take my box of electrical treasures down to the incinerator...

I have a similar scenario regarding my football and the light in the loungeroom of my childhood home.

Dad was out (I think at the milk bar buying hamburgers and chips for our tea) and I was at home with my brother and sisters. I was in the lounge kicking small bombs with the football and one kick just happened to be a bit better than the others. It hit the diffuser on the light fitting, cracking it and knocking the lamp out, with the lot falling to the floor around me.

Anyway, being about 14 at the time I went out to the shed, got a ladder, put the lamp back in the fitting and gently nestled the diffuser (including the piece that broke off) back in the end caps and the result was not bad - the crack in the diffuser was almost un-noticeable.

I am sure my old man would never have known except that my younger brother (about six at the time), who swore on a stack of bibles that he would not grass on me, did do so the second Dad drove up the driveway. I got a clip under the ear for it though I gave my brother one later on for giving me away. I wouldn't mind betting though that Dad would have been proud of my ingenuity in 'repairing' the light fitting.