More deathly than lively I think Brian 
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Iām still here! I got a couple of nasty bruises from the reflex at the time, though.
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My bruise came from me hitting the wardrobe. I donāt recall how I got there from the other side of the room, but my arm sure hurt. I didnāt blow the 500mA fuse and the 800v was still sitting there when I checked waiting to grab me for a second timeā¦ which I avoided of course! QQVO6/40A PSUs, donāt ya just love them? 
Only 800V on a 6/40ā¦ noob 
A (now SK I think) early G8 I knew managed to get his 6/40 so warm and glowing it desoldered one end of its own anode tank coil. All the expected pantomime flashes, bangs, crashes followed by smoke and smells. The mess was cleaned up and a few days later a 7/50 substituted with even more HT applied. He got a substantial amount of āoomphā on 4m from it and didnāt need a heater in the shack either.
My 800V was also to a 6-40A, half-wave anode lines tuned with a disk capacitor, and I absent-mindedly used a screwdriver instead of the proper tool to adjust it, getting a slight contact to the shaft - and the other hand was not in my pocket where it should have been!
I miss hollow-state technology, it was easy to work on but it was also like keeping a pet tiger, even the basic household four valve superhet could maul you if you dropped your guard. I looked on ebay earlier, there was an Eddystone 840A available, the early model with the black wrinkle finish paint, not the later one with grey hammer finish. I am profoundly tempted but I think I will hold out for a 680X!
I still have all the bitsā¦ I just need a bit more lockdown to force me to rebuild it. 
I bought an 840C off eBay a few years back. It was really enjoyable getting it going. I need to have another session on it sometime as the BFO injection is a little weak. As it is a live chassis receiver, I run mine off a 110V 1kVA isolating transformer which means the dropper resistor is not in circuit so keeping the receiver cooler. I use the same transformer to run my Marshall bass amp. The secondary is centre tapped to earth, so the worst I would get if something fails is 55V. 
ISTR the 840C was the version with the little āmagic eyeā tuning indicator. Way back in about 1960 I upgraded from an R1155N to an 840A, after I tried the trick of re-tuning the cores IF transformers to the outer resonance point it wasnāt too bad, though fairly deaf on 10m! I ran it on an autotransformer but it didnāt seem to make it run much cooler - but as you say, much safer!
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Boy, this brings back some memories! I was given an old PHILCO
table radio when I was a kid around 1954 or so, and started listening
to the SW bands. I found the hams on 20, 40 and 75 meter AM.
Thatās what got me interested! And the loctal tubes! My first 2 meter rig had a mixture of loctal, octal and miniature and an 892B tubes in it. It was a mess but it worked! 45 watts output on 2 meters in 1964! Wow!
Is the ISWL still around? I havenāt heard of them in years. I used to belong to it maybe 40 (?) years ago. I liked their newsletters and QSL bureau.
73,
John, K6YK
Hey, that AC-1 Senior is a beauty !
Hope it works as good as it looks!
Letās see if I can upload one of my little transmitters.
I need to put a front panel on it and make it a bit neater!
But it works swell, about 15 watts output, 40 and 20 meters.
73
John, K6YK
Far too safeā¦ no exposed HV at all
Iām having a big shack/store decluter. 30 years of collecting results in quite a collection of stuff. Thereās something lovely about valved (tubed) transmitters and PAs. However, as our contest group have put all the 3cx100, 4cx250, 3cx800, 572b and 4cx1000 amps into retirement and switched to LDMOS amps then Iāve decided to sell all my Parmeko and Woden transformers and all the high voltage electrolytics etc that I have acquired over the years.
Though I still fancy making a glowbug TX using a 5B/254M in the PA stage 
New fangled device not nearly so elegant as itās big daddy the 807
Nor so tolerant of abuseā¦
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Yes, the ISWL is still going. Iām sure they would be delighted to have you re-join - you can have your old membership number back.
āMonitorā is still published, and in some ways hardly seems to have changedā¦
I keep my membership going largely for old timeās sake.
Martyn M1MAJ G-13872
Thanks, Martyn.
I used to like to read the :Monitor to see what folks on the
other side of the world were hearing on the bands. Nowadays
with all the real time DX spotting, etc. It would be sort of
āold newsā. We used to receive various DX bulletins that
came out once a week or so to find out who was working what,
but now just take a quick look at the internet and itās done!
73,
John
Nice one 
I used to work as a Systems Engineer at Cossor in the early 80ās, and it was a family affair as my wife, BOTH her parents and my brother in law all worked there at various times.
My wifeās parents both worked at the Highbury factory and later moved to Harlow when the company relocated. My father in law was a coil and transformer designer in the post war years so I wouldnāt be surprised if he had a hand in that model.
By my time, the radio and TV business was long gone, but were fondly remembered by some of the old timers. I worked on industrial telemetry, secondary radar and so on.
I have his copy of Termanās āRadio Engineeringā published in 1937 on my shelf ā¦
Cheers
Rick
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All this conversation reminded me of QSLs I received when I was SWLing with the old Philco
wooden tube (valve) radio. Hereās one of the best, received not long before I took my ham test.
Enjoy!
73,
John, K6YK
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Hi OM,
What tube(valve) is that? I canāt read it in the photo.
73,
John, K6YK.
P.S. the tube in my little transmitter above is an 832A, will also work
with an 829 or 5894, but still only puts out about the same, not enough voltage on the plate, about 475 volts.