Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 20 May 91 01:31:38 GMT From: Mike Ardai Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Use in Aircraft Message-ID: Organization: Teradyne EDA, Inc. Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 380, Message 1 of 10 Lines: 24 In article Mike Spann writes: > Digging way back into my memory, I do remember a story (maybe even > true) where police officers were told not to dump their spare bullets > into the same bag as their hand held radios. The story I was told was > that should the push-to-talk button be pressed, the electro-magnetic > waves could cause a round to go off. [This is getting rather far from Telecom...] Actually, it is much simpler than that. Most handheld radios have metal contacts on the bottom for recharging. Putting one of them into the same pocket as bullets will cause the bullets to short out the charging studs. This will heat them up and cause them to fire. I seem to rememeber that a cop shot himself that way back in the 70's in NYC. (I had a similar experience with some keys and my ICOM - they sure got hot :-) Michael L. Ardai N1IST Teradyne EDA East sun!teda!ardai (preferred) or ardai@bu-pub.bu.edu