Re: Subject: Safety Reminder

[Embryp]

I assume you are talking about a Marconi coherer, the first detector. Then there are the razor blade detectors used by POW's in W.W.II.
This all falls under the realm of magic to me but given the flash point vapor point and specific gravity, with gasoline, anything is possible. I would imagine it's possible for corrosion on a vehicle part to act as a detector and generate a spark. Especially if it already carries a current, anything from the battery to the tail lamp, including ground returns.
It would be my guess that sparks would more likely to be caused by a combination of phone housing, carrying case, clothing, etc., creating a static charge or a bad battery connection causing a spark in the case of a handheld phone and bad connections in the case of vehicular mounted phones.
Cigarette lighter power adapters are in my opinion the worst possible way to power anything. They are definitely another possible source of sparks.
phe
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Hmmm ... interesting theory, although if true, it's likely that such RFI
would cause the fuel bowser to register excessive counts, therefore
producing a higher bill - in which case they would simply warn people
about THAT, since nobody wants a higher bill, right?

It's difficult to imagine too many circumstances in which a mobile phone
would induce a spark, but I suspect it's theoretically possible. The GSM
system we currently use produces short, strong transmissions (time
division multiplexing) of up to 3W, IIRC. Is that strong enough to induce
a spark under certain circumstances? In the early days of radio, wasn't
spark generation sometimes used as an indicator of RF energy detection
(and no, I'm not referring to spark generators used for transmission)? I
dunno, but ...

Joe.