{"id":5051,"date":"2012-05-29T10:36:31","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T14:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=5051"},"modified":"2023-04-29T08:47:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T12:47:47","slug":"do-radio-transmitters-have-the-capability-of-electrocuting-copper-thieves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2012\/05\/do-radio-transmitters-have-the-capability-of-electrocuting-copper-thieves\/","title":{"rendered":"Do radio transmitters have the capability of electrocuting copper thieves?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I found that question while perusing my search engine statistics today.&nbsp; The short answer in theory is yes.&nbsp; If you are a copper thief, it will most likely look like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2EUAxrC-4IM\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That being the case, however, it is much more likely that an RF burn will result if one comes in contact with an energized antenna or transmission line.\u00a0 Even small RF burns are painful, large ones can be nasty things.\u00a0 RF burns occur because of the skin effect, that is to say, the higher the frequency of the AC waveform, the closer to the surface of any given conductor the current will flow.\u00a0 It is the reason why five-watt STL transmitters on 950 MHz use 7\/8 or 1 5\/8 inch cable to reduce losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When a human body part comes in contact with an energized RF antenna, the body part becomes part of the circuit, thus it follows the same principles.\u00a0 The extremity that is making contact will have its skin burned off.\u00a0 It also smells bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting an RF burn is a painful lesson on what not to come in contact with around a transmitter site.\u00a0 But, that is not all.\u00a0 Simply being in close proximity to radiating elements of antennas will induce body tissue heating, just like a microwave oven.\u00a0 This can lead to all sorts of short-term and long-term damage to organs and other problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore, the best thing is to avoid radio and cellular towers if you do not know what you are doing.\u00a0\u00a0 Stay out of fenced-in areas around tower bases.\u00a0 No matter how tempting that copper may look, you could be seriously injured or killed if you cut the wrong thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I found that question while perusing my search engine statistics today.&nbsp; The short answer in theory is yes.&nbsp; If you are a copper thief, it will most likely look like this: That being the case, however, it is much more likely that an RF burn will result if one comes in contact with an energized &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2012\/05\/do-radio-transmitters-have-the-capability-of-electrocuting-copper-thieves\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Do radio transmitters have the capability of electrocuting copper thieves?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[33,28,110],"class_list":["post-5051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-am-towers","tag-fm-site","tag-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5051"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11600,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5051\/revisions\/11600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}