[AusNOG] Tech tales

phil colbourn philcolbourn at gmail.com
Mon Jul 5 21:19:23 EST 2010


My Dad sometimes tells a story - so since I never learnt to listen, I
probably don't have the details exactly right.

He worked in a government factory, probably 1960's - 1970's. The factory
took delivery of an epoxy hardening chamber that used high power microwave
radiation - this was before domestic microwave ovens were common.

The operators complained that the chamber was too dark.

My Father recalled a time like Kai described where radio waves lit an
unpowered fluoro. So casually - as if it was the normal thing to do - he
instructed the electrician's to fit a fluro in each chamber but not to wire
it up.

Eventually, probably to humour him, the fluros were fitted and to my Dad's
relief, they worked perfectly.

On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 12:40 PM, Kai <vk6ksj at westnet.com.au> wrote:

> One night out camping along the Gibb River road with family, parked at a
> lovely spot not too far from a waterfall, I was on 80 metres (3.6MHz)
> chatting away from the mobile rig in the car, mum wanted some light in the
> camp so she attached a lightweight fluoro on my heavy duty roo-bar mounted
> antenna.
>
> Pushing standard 100watts PEP, variable modulation gave is a small light
> show with the fluoro. Not a huge story, just a bit of fun :)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sean K. Finn" <sean.finn at ozservers.com.au>
> To: "Curtis Bayne" <curtis at bayne.com.au>, "Paul Jones" <
> paul at pauljones.id.au>, "ausnog at ausnog.net" <ausnog at ausnog.net>
> Sent: Monday, 5 July, 2010 12:00:52 PM GMT +09:30 Darwin
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Junior techs
>
> This is a self-inflicted one about 15 years ago.
>
> In my junior years I used to strip telephone wires with my teeth before
> (re)terminating them. (Don't Ask, I now have a filling in that same place).
>
> Trouble is This one day I did it and both wires touched my tounge.
>
> That wasn't so bad, except at that instant a call came in and I got 50v
> across my tounge.
>
> I have used appropriate tools ever eince.
>
> S.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:
> ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Curtis Bayne
> Sent: Monday, 5 July 2010 12:25 PM
> To: Paul Jones; ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Junior techs
>
> LOL! I had a similar incident with an SCR the other day (been building
> custom power control circuits for our HVAC). Turns out reactive loads
> require snubber circuits. No boom but lots of pain :(
>
> Any other electronics nerds on list?
>
> Sent from my HTC Touch Pro
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Jones <paul at pauljones.id.au>
> Sent: Monday, 5 July 2010 12:18 PM
> To: ausnog at ausnog.net <ausnog at ausnog.net>
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Junior techs
>
> The best one I know of is a junior tech who started a job repairing high
> power amplifiers(+2kw). One of the senior techs found a good specimen unit
> that was beyond repair and took it apart and reversed the polarity on all
> the filter capacitors in the power unit. He then gave it to the junior to
> diagnose, with the instructions "BEFORE removing the case it is necessary
> to
> troubleshoot as far as possible, both as a safety precaution and to save
> time." - You can imagine what happened when the poor guy turned it on -
> KABOOM!! Needless to say it became a lifelong safety lesson as well as a
> funny story!
>
>
>
>
>
> Paul.
>
>
>
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Hood
> Sent: Monday, 5 July 2010 11:32 AM
> To: 'Jacob Gardiner'; 'Skeeve Stevens'
> Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Anyone else experiencing high latency, low speeds
> through internode?
>
>
>
> Best one we always used to do to juniors, was take them out on a phone
> system installation or somewhere that required patching (or that we could
> make require patching)... Then get them to "hold these two bare telephone
> cables and be a  "marker", and tell them "don't drop them or lose them no
> matter what happens". Then the rest of the boys would head into the other
> room and call that phone line or extension... Was a great prank. Till one
> of
> the juniors packed a sad and called in Workplace Safety... Boo!
>
>
>
> Dan
>
>
>
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Jacob Gardiner
> Sent: Monday, 5 July 2010 10:27 AM
> To: Skeeve Stevens
> Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Anyone else experiencing high latency, low speeds
> through internode?
>
>
>
> I'd like to hear more of these induction ceremonies.
>
>
>
> Any funny junior stories floating around?
>
>
>
> JG
>
>
>
> On 05/07/2010, at 10:21 AM, Skeeve Stevens wrote:
>
>
>
> Indeed... all part of the initiation to the industry.
>
>
>
> ...Skeeve
>
>
>
> --
>
> Skeeve Stevens, CEO/Technical Director
>
> eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists
>
> skeeve at eintellego.net / www.eintellego.net
>
> Phone: 1300 753 383, Fax: (+612) 8572 9954
>
> Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 / skype://skeeve
>
> www.linkedin.com/in/skeeve ; facebook.com/eintellego
>
> --
>
> NOC, NOC, who's there?
>
>
>
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Hooper
> Sent: Monday, 5 July 2010 10:16 AM
> To: ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Anyone else experiencing high latency, low speeds
> through internode?
>
>
>
> And part of every junior tech/network engineers training is to cop a good
> flaming on a few mailing list.
>
>
>
> -Dan
>
>
>
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-- 
Phil

http://philatwarrimoo.blogspot.com
http://code.google.com/p/snmp2xml

"Someone has solved it and uploaded it for free."

"If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to look."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke - Who does magic today?
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