Zenith 4-tube hybrid Chromacolor questions

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

Nein, Nyet! No need to ground it. Simply hold the screwdriver by the insulated handle. The arc is drawn by the innate capacitance of the screwdriver 'free floating' in the air. The screwdriver is in effect 'grounded' capacitively to RF.
Though this reactive capacitance is very small, the arc occurs because it's driven by high level RF spikes (the 'fly-back' spikes).

I b'lieve maybe you're thinking of grounding a CRT to discharge it.

Hm, I didn't know that a screwdriver that isn't wired to ground could cause an arc at all. I was thinking of the screwdriver being held close to but not actually touching the HV lead.