[TenTec] Way Off Topic, But...

[Kim Elmore]

This is way off topic and not radio related, but there are some danged 
smart people that participate on the reflector, so here goes...

It's the holidays and we've put up Christmas lights (mostly incandescent 
series strings) and I'm seeing some very weird affects when I try  
replacement bulbs. Specifically, when I plug in a replacement bulb of 
ostensibly the correct voltage, it flashes like a strobe and is 
immediately burned out. I tried some higher voltage bulbs, up top 12 V 
and the same thing happens! All I can think of is that the cold 
resistance of the filament is much higher in the replacements than in 
all the other bulbs so that far more voltage appears across the new bulb 
than the others and so the filament vaporizes. Is this what's going on? 
It's very frustrating, to say the least...

73 & MX,

Kim N5OP
-- 

Kim Elmore, Ph.D. (Adj. Assoc. Prof., OU School of Meteorology, CCM, PP 
SEL/MEL/Glider, N5OP, 2nd Class Radiotelegraph, GROL)

/"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in 
practice, there is." //– Attributed to many people; it’s so true that it 
doesn’t matter who said it./