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How To Make Talking Hot Dogs with Just Your AM Tower's RF and A Looooooooooong Stick

Bongwater

Bongwater

Don't get me wrong. Talking wieners have existed en masse on AM radio since the rollback of The Fairness Doctrine. But now comes a demonstration of an alternative use for obsolete AM radio towers compared to the stinky, fumes-filled Weber grill for your next big BBQ.

I always wondered why SBE picnics always seem to happen at AM radio towers. Now I think I get it.

It also shows just how HOT an AM tower gets.

 
FM would cook 'em better. But you need a much longer pole.

A friend of mine was in the Navy and used to cook them like that but in front of a radar antenna.
 
The power distribution company in Houston had a mast operators school in the 1990’s illustrating the dangers of masts used in TV and radio remote trucks. For the finale, they had a trailer with a piece of power line suspended between two insulated poles and fed by a 5 kW generator that back fed a pole transformer so that the line was at 13 kV. They then took a ”hot stick” with a grounded spike on the end and put a hot dog on it and brought it close to the energized wire. The hot dog blew into several pieces clearly indicating to the attendees what would happen if you got body parts close to a power line.
 
In the late 1990s CBS had a training video that opened with a shot of a remote van, with mast up and in contact with an overhead HV power wire. On the opposite side of the van were the passenger doors, so you couldn't actually see what happend when the person got out of the energized van and stepped on the ground. But you did see the flash. Everyone in engineering in the company was required to watch the video then sign an aknowlegement sheet.

We all would have preferred the hot dog version.
 
Before the ”hot dog” demonstration there was a video shown about a lineman that had accidentally contacted a live line and survived but with life altering injuries. They also presented a strategy about exiting a vehicle that had come in contact with a wire. While I liked the challenges working with masts, things are certainly a lot safer now using wireless modems.
 
Dr. Bob said:
The power distribution company in Houston had a mast operators school in the 1990’s illustrating the dangers of masts used in TV and radio remote trucks. For the finale, they had a trailer with a piece of power line suspended between two insulated poles and fed by a 5 kW generator that back fed a pole transformer so that the line was at 13 kV. They then took a ”hot stick” with a grounded spike on the end and put a hot dog on it and brought it close to the energized wire. The hot dog blew into several pieces clearly indicating to the attendees what would happen if you got body parts close to a power line.
Click to expand...
Every year at the Dayton Ohio Ham radio convention they demonstrated the same way
 
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