Rebooting the amiga with a couple of walkie-talkies!

[KennyR]

If its doing that to your Amiga through steel sheeting, think what its doing inside your head. :nervous:

[KennyR]

N7VQM wrote:

That's dependant on frequency. Different RF wavelengths heat different parts of the body. If they're 49MHz (wavelength = 6.12 meters) radios, there's very little heating effect to the stuff in your head. The head is just too small. And 5 watts (most probable max output for a handheld) isn't going to heat you up much anyway. However, if they are 400MHz (wavelength = 1.33 meters) units, your head DOES get the most of the heating effect. But, like I said, 5 watts of transmit RF doesn't do much. The computer really is in much more danger than you at these low levels. A kilowatt or so and it's a different story.

Even without heating there is still a potential for damage. EM pulses create current in any conductor, and brain tissue is a pretty good conductor. Considering the human brain is the most complicated object created by mankind or nature (that we know of), who knows what these surges of current in the brain could be doing?

[KennyR]

N7VQM wrote:

Did you forget about the last sentence of my post or did you ignore it?

Sorry, my eyes saw "thermal" there and not athermal.

It's not yet known just how RF feilds below the ionization level affect biologicial mechnisms. And, while the chemical soup in the brain is a decent conductor, it is not a good inductor.

True.

If it was, I doubt we would have survived this long concidering the RF pulses created by lightning strikes.

True as well. But... Anecdotal evidence would suggest that those close are knocked unconcious even without having any of the current pass through their bodies. It could be the blast wave and/or the flash and bang as well, of course.

There's also reason to believe that EM fields disrupt the mental processes. Experiments with magnetic fields along the brain causes subtle mood changes or memory recollections. Until there's evidence to the contrary, I'll do the opposite of everyone else and assume that cellphones and other EM transmitters can actually affect the brain. When people are making money out of dismissing unproven science, its usually a safe bet that the science is right and that they are wrong. How many years did the tobacco industry deny smoking caused cancer?