'Never had another problem with it and never found any one point source of
the problem - lotsa suspicious points.
Wilton
----- Original Message -----
From: "Curly McLain via Mercedes" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
To: "Mercedes Discussion List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Cc: "Curly McLain" <126die...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2015 12:18 AM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT - GEORGE TALES - DESKS, GREMLINS AND BARRICADES
Waytago!
Did replacing all the underground wiring fix the voltage in the ground?
Since that part of the story ended, I assume it did fix the problem.
Nobody ever found the source of the voltage?
'Nother one a'ready.
GEORGE TALES - DESKS, GREMLINS & BARRICADES
By Wilton Strickland, Lt Col, USAF (Ret)
Because I had come directly from B-52 flight operations to civil
engineering, I had never seen a civil engineering work control center
other than ours. By early 1976, though, I had visited such centers at
Wright-Patterson, Norton and March Air Force Bases. I was not only
interested in observing their overall operations; I especially wanted to
see their controller desks and their communication systems.
The control centers I visited seemed to be very efficient. They were
quiet and very business-like. Electric buzzer-operated locks on the
doors controlled access to these rooms. The controller desks in two of
them were copies of the units shown in Air Force Regulation (AFR) 85-5.
By contrast, our work control center was noisy and crowded; it seemed
chaotic and very inefficient. People were often standing around the room
visiting. One end of the room also served as a traffic corridor. My
secretary's desk was also in the traffic corridor area of the same room.
Our controllers used standard desks, which always seemed cluttered and
unorganized. I soon decided to build a new work control center by
enclosing and expanding into the space between two short wings of the
building, an area adjoining the existing room.
This renovation project was delayed several times by scheduling
priorities until I started the project one Saturday afternoon by myself
by removing a wall. I also designed new controller desks by modifying
the design in AFR 85-5 and incorporating some suggestions given by
controllers at the control centers I visited. I had a cabinetmaker in
our carpenter shop build four of the desks.
A few months after arriving at George, I began to hear reports that
people were occasionally getting random electrical shocks in one area of
base housing. People were reporting being shocked when they touched
metal outside stair rails, outside water faucets, playground equipment,
sides of their houses, etc. I sent electricians out several times over
several months to investigate these reports and could never find a
problem with the electrical system in any location reported. Our cable
TV technician also several times reported finding burned spots on the
underground TV cable in the same area.
After several months of frustration at not finding any problem, I
sent electricians out to do a detailed survey of the general area, i.e.,
take voltage readings at many places throughout the area and plot them on
a map. While the crew was out, I received a radio call from one of the
electricians saying, "You need to come and see this, you'll never believe
it, otherwise."
I rushed out to find the electrician sitting under a tree shaking his
head and making notes on his map. As I sat down on the ground beside
him, he said, "Watch this."
He was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed under him; he took
one end of the voltmeter probes in each hand and stuck them into the
ground in front of him about two and a half feet apart. Instantly the
meter read 18 volts! Theoretically, the voltage between two points on
the ground, especially so close together, would be 0. The survey showed
voltage readings of 18 to 27 volts in various locations throughout the
entire area; for example, between metal stair rails and ground, between
nails in exterior siding and ground, between outside door knobs and
ground, between playground equipment and ground, between water faucets
and ground, etc.
The area had an underground electrical distribution system. We began
to suspect that the underground system might have been leaking stray
voltage into the ground. I called an electrical engineer at Tactical Air
Command (TAC) Headquarters and explained the situation to him. He had a
hard time believing me; he even swore that I must be crazy.
I said to him, "I know what the theory is. I know the reading is
supposed to be 0. I'm telling you what I've seen with my own eyes. If
you don't believe me, come and see for yourself."
He flew across the country that night, and the next morning, I drove
him out to the area in question and dropped him off with his voltmeter
and notepad. A couple of hours later, I returned to the drop off point
and found him sitting in the shade of a tree shaking his head.
As I walked up, he exclaimed, "That just can't be!"
I replied, "But it is."
We soon let a contract to replace all of the underground wiring in
the affected area.
Another electrical problem arose late one night in '76. I received a
call from one of our overhead electric linemen reporting that a pole at
the end of one of the major overhead power lines on base was cracking and
about to fall. There was danger of this pole collapsing and starting a
domino effect to physically overload several poles nearby.
I rushed out to the site and found the pole leaning precariously and
the guy wire attached to it pulling slowly out of the ground. A fire
truck with a winch on the font was on the scene. I asked the fireman to
attach his winch to the guy wire and hold it in place while the lineman
installed two new guy wires in the ground -- one near each front corner
of the truck. The two new guy wires stabilized the overhead line and
allowed the line crew to safely install a new pole and supporting cables
the following day.
Late in 1975 or 1976, our carpenter shop foreman told me of his
concerns about traffic barricades that Security Police had asked us to
build and install at the base gates. The plan called for manually
operated barricades, much like railroad crossing gates and long enough to
cover two lanes -- about 25 feet. The barricades were to pivot at the
base and mount near the top of four-foot tall, six-inch diameter steel
pipes mounted in concrete. The carpenter was concerned that the
barricades were too long and too unwieldy to operate safely. He was also
concerned that, in the vertical, stowed position, they would flutter
uncontrollably in the occasional high winds common in the desert.
I told him, "Let me think about it overnight and I'll talk to you
about it again in the morning."
That night I designed and sketched a much smaller, lighter and, I
think, improved barricade to block only one lane at a time. I designed
S-shaped steel plates on each side of the pivoting/mounting points to
allow a short balancing arm with weights to be installed on the opposite
side of the post from the main part of the barricade itself and allowed
the barricade to be safely and easily operated with one hand. A straight
steel rod was mounted in approximately the middle of each barricade and
swung down to keep the barricades from going below horizontal. The pivot
point and counter-balancing weights were arranged so that the barricades
were held in the horizontal and/or vertical positions by gravity. A
simple hook-type latch on each post could also secure the barricades in
the vertical position to prevent accidental deployment. The carpenter
shop immediately built and installed the barricades in accordance with my
design. When I last visited the base in March 1979, these barricades
were still in use.
Wilton
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