I remember the hot dog cooker from my JHS days, as well. Things were
different then! We had a rifle club with a shooting range in the
basement and I would bring my .22 to school on my bike--an activity
which would probably get you arrested today.
I built my first transmitter in 1952. One day, after I had it
finished a ham friend came over to take a look at it. He leaned
over, resting his hand on the tuning capacitor which happened to be
set with the plates fully meshed. Before I could tell him that the
plate voltage was on he let out a scream, jumped back and took a look
at the stripes on his palm.
Bob, N7XY
On Jan 5, 2006, at 5:54 AM, Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ Elecraft wrote:
A repost for Fred, K6DGW.
-------- Original Message --------
---------------------------
The definition of a "dumb thing" often changes over time. In Jr
High electric shop in '53, we were given our choice of two
projects: An electric motor that would run on a car battery, or a
hot dog cooker. The hot dog cooker consisted of a wooden base
through which two long nails had been driven, about 2/3 of a hot
dog length apart. A lamp cord was soldered to the heads of the
nails. To cook a hot dog, you performed the following steps (in
the order shown, please):
1. Remove hot dog from package and push it onto the nails
2. Insert plug on the end of the lamp cord into a wall socket
3. Watch hot dog cook
4. Remove plug from wall socket
5. Remove hot dog
I chose to build the motor ... not because I thought the hot dog
cooker was absurdly dangerous (although I had just been licensed as
KN6DGW so I was on a first name basis with a few electrons, but
dangerous never occurred to me -- after all, the teacher gave us
the projects, no?), but because while harder, the motor looked like
more fun ... stuff moved.
I would surmise that, given the general trend in product liability
over the intervening years, the hot dog cooker is no longer a
project choice in schools.
Fred K6DGW
Auburn CA CM98lw
"The problem with 'Lessons Learned' is that so few ever really are."
Leo Endres
--
_..._
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