[sdiy] OT: Tomorrow's new HV career

[KA4HJH]

While I've got the ball rolling here I might as well segue into an OT
announcement (and thanks for all the replies to my toxic question--it
smells very distinctly like oil so I guess I'm off the hook).

I just got back from an intensive six weeks at neon school. I survived
without severely burning myself (one finger still healing--IR vision would
be nice), severing an artery on broken glass (which I walked on constantly)
or being electrocuted (never got zapped once, although one of the other
students did hook up the transformers wrong once and you could feel the HV
on the outside of the tube--good thing it wasn't "hot"). I am, however, a
bit burnt mentally. The last week was quite a strain. We were running out
of time and really pushing to get things finished up. I broke my palm tree
several times. Some of the disappointments were crushing.

So here I am recuperating. I was supposed to see my therapist today for the
first time in seven weeks but it had to snow today for some reason. I tore
an X-ray head apart instead and got oil all over the place. Another mess to
clean up.

I already have a job in the business lined up and it's just a matter of
formalizing the situation and starting work. In fact, I've been dealing
with the state bureaucracy to get them to send me to this school for over
two years and I've had this job lined up for almost a year now. As soon as
I can think straight again I'll start bending tubing. Who knows, maybe
someday I'll be making so much money in the custom neon biz that I can
afford some MOTM modules...


This list was one of the few familiar things I had to touch on sitting on
an incredibly uncomfortable chair in a crummy hotel room in Baltimore,
waiting on a 26400 connection through a PBX which periodically disconnected
me and on several occasions rang the phone while I was connected!.

If I've succeeded in pissing anyone off over the years I'm sorry. Didn't
mean to (most of the time, anyway). And for all those people who are still
waiting on a scan or a schematic, remind me. My memory is very funky, and
even worse than usual at the moment.

Being AD(H)D I'm constantly switching topics, but I've tried to keep all
the OT chatter on some subject that would be of interest to most people on
this list--such as today's screw up. Like a lot of you this is where I
"hang out" the most so naturally these topics come up. Careers got
discussed once before but I had nothing to say then. Now is the time.

There's a lot more I could say but others have said it before. This is the
coolest list, with the coolest people, despite the occasional, inevitable
flap.


And speaking one last time on the X-ray tube topic, neon signs have a
similar problem--electrode erosion. The positive ions slam into the anode
and knock metal atoms loose, slowly wearing the electrode away (and signs
are turned on a lot more hours a day). Some of the ions become embedded,
causing the envelope to slowly lose gas pressure as well. So the next time
you see a neon sign flickering, look for the ring around the electrode...

Note that for some odd reason the electrodes are often referred to as
"cathodes" in the trade, even though most signs are AC powered and the
polarity is constantly being reversed.


Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor" (taking questions but not orders for custom neon--yet)