Topband: PCB Inspection Warning!

[Donald Chester]

I received a telephone call this morning from a lady who told me she was 
doing a followup to a PCB inspection at the radio station that gave me the 
Gates BC1-T broadcast transmitter about a year ago. She explained that the 
station personnel gave her my name as the person receiving the transmitter, 
and that she is required to follow up to keep track of where the PCB had 
gone.

She asked me a few questions about the transmitter, and I told her that I 
had put it to use after converting it to the 160m ham band, and assured her 
that I had worked with this type of equipment for many years and that I was 
aware of the PCB situation and the requirement that any PCB components be 
disposed of properly. I also explained that there were many items on the 
transmitter, such as tar-filled transformers and electrolytic capacitors 
that had been mislabeled as "PCB devices". I explained that the only actual 
PCB devices in the transmitter were the HV power supply capacitors and that 
none of the transformers contained PCB. She seemed satisfied at my response.

She asked me if the parts that were mislabelled "PCB" had been tested or 
otherwise how did I know they did not contain PCB. She seemed satisfied with 
my response that I was familiar with the nameplates and part #'s on the 
components (such as the UTC CG series filter choke).

She told me she was going to write in ther report that the only PCB 
components involved in this case are "small capacitors" which, evidently, 
are exempt from stringent regulations covering "large capacitors".

The lady was very cordial and pleasant to talk with. Hopefully this will be 
the last I hear on the topic. I have LOADS of PCB capacitors in my 40+ years 
parts collection.

I thought it might be wise to pass this along since other members of this 
board may have acquired transmitters or transmitter parts from broadcast 
stations and may eventually be contacted in a similar inquiry. Evidently all 
commercial users of anything with PCB must account for every item they 
dispose of. To avoid further hassle, it might be a good idea to have your 
story already prepared and anything of significance documented in such a way 
as to satisfy any inquisitors. This is especially true if anything in the 
transmitter has one of the yellow "PCB" decals attached. This means that it 
is on record somewhere that the unit contains PCB. I would suggest assuring 
anyone making an inquiry that all capacitors are in the "small" category, 
still in use it the transmitter, and that you know how to properly dispose 
of them, or at least you know not to throw them in the dump.

In order not to cause the source of retired transmitters to dry up, we need 
to bend over backwards to satisfy the PCB inquisitors. All it would take 
would be one or two cases of station management being hassled about giving 
away PCP-laden stuff that was later improperly disposed of, for the story to 
circulate throughout the industry, resulting in a standard corporate policy 
not to release abandoned transmitters to private individuals. The person who 
talks to you may not be as cordial as the lady who called me.

I recall a ham out west telling me several years ago that a station manager 
refused to let him have a 1 kw transmitter with a quad of 833A's because he 
was so paranoid about liability over PCB. When the ham offered to remove all 
the likely PCB components and leave them on-site for proper disposal, the 
manager still refused, apparently believing that the mere presence of one 
PCB capacitor somehow contaminated everything inside the box, and that he 
might eventually be held liable even for releasing the 833A's! So the 
station paid top dollar to some hazardous waste disposal company to move an 
entire 1500+ lb. tranasmitter to a special site for "proper" disposal.

Don,  k4kyv

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