ELECTRIC WIRELESS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17417, 15 November 1930, Page 4

ELECTRIC WIRELESS

CASE OP SHORT CIRCUIT RECENT ACCIDENT EXPLAINED Investigation of , the recent accident in which an Auckland woman was severely burned through a short circuit developing in the loud speaker of a wireless set which she attempted to lift, shows that in some manner one of the wires leading to the set was defective and that her hand completed a circuit which carried about 200 volts, the maximum current that the eliminator could' give. • ' . ’ • ' The house was not in a direct current area as had bepn suggested. It received alternating current at the ordinary voltage. The 200 volts is not sufficient to create danger of electrocution, but- it may, and in this case did, cause severe burning. The set was an old one converted to electricity, and did not possess an output choke in the speaker, which really isolates it from the voltage that passes through the filter into the set. While the purpose of the output choke is to improve reception, it also is a safeguard by reason of the reduced amount of current passing. The modern electric set, in alternating current areas, at least, is as safe a thing as any other piece of electrical equipment used domestically, and the instrument in question would have been quite safe if the connections to the speaker had been in good order.