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Can you really electrocute someone using a telephone? (vanity)
12-05-05 | Jo Nuvark

Posted on 12/05/2005 9:01:26 PM PST by Jo Nuvark

Asking forgiveness in advance for this droll vanity. Every time I hear John Kerry talk about the atrocities and tortures in Vietnam (now Iraq), I wonder about electrocuting someone with a telephone. Can this really be done? Or is Kerry inventing again?


TOPICS: Military/Veterans; Science
KEYWORDS: callmythbusters; current; electricity; kerry
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1 posted on 12/05/2005 9:01:28 PM PST by Jo Nuvark
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To: Jo Nuvark
When Kerry was in the service, you could take a DC field phone and use it to shock someone.

He is living in his past make-believe world again.

2 posted on 12/05/2005 9:03:10 PM PST by KC Burke (Men of intemperate minds can never be free....)
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To: KC Burke
...you could take a DC field phone and use it to shock someone.

Almost anyone who enjoyed listening to the stories of older relatives will remember the stories about hooking up some sort of DC device [usually called a "Shocking Machine" by the bad kids who played with them] to someone's old iron bedstead ... and then you had to turn a hand crank to generate enough electricity to shock someone ...

I never heard of anyone being electrocuted by one of these childish pranks. LOL

3 posted on 12/05/2005 9:06:53 PM PST by caryatid (Jolie Blonde, 'gardez donc, quoi t'as fait ...)
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To: Jo Nuvark

Yes-it used to be a routine practice here in the Arkansas prison system. Well, not killing, but severely shocking them. BUT, I assume it could kill a human...


4 posted on 12/05/2005 9:07:39 PM PST by mozarky2 (Ya never stand so tall as when ya stoop to stomp a statist!)
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To: Jo Nuvark

Kerry is as a big a moron as he is a liar.


5 posted on 12/05/2005 9:08:14 PM PST by msf92497 (Uh Oh)
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To: Jo Nuvark
I've heard that you could fish with a hand crank phone coil.

I'm sure that some one can be electrocuted if the heart can be crossed.

6 posted on 12/05/2005 9:12:18 PM PST by oyez (Appeasement is death!)
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To: Jo Nuvark

Well, my ex-landlord complained about getting a big shock from the phone wires while remodeling. I guess people don't realize how much juice is in those wires. But I'm pretty sure if it was enough to electorcute you there'd be more awareness of it. I guess there is also no way to shut that power off, so it can't be a lethal dose. (Notice how I skillfully avoided using specific electrical terms such as current, voltage, etc. I know the limits of my knowledge eh? That's why I won't touch any of this stuff!)


7 posted on 12/05/2005 9:12:58 PM PST by jocon307
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To: msf92497

A coward, too,


8 posted on 12/05/2005 9:13:08 PM PST by oyez (Appeasement is death!)
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To: KC Burke

I read somewhere that this could NOT be done because of amps or volts or something. I know the WWII phones used a hand crank generator. But I don't know if it was amped.


9 posted on 12/05/2005 9:14:16 PM PST by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: caryatid
I have heard numerous stories of people being electrocuted by 12 volts, as in an automobile battery (but not necessarily involving a coil to generate high voltage).

It is generally considered that current rather than voltage is what kills. Of course the two are related but it is possible to get very high currents from low voltage sources if the resistance is low.

Ordinarilly, point skin resistence is high enough to make low voltages inconsequential. But where skim contact area is large, such as if hands were wet with some conducting liquid, lethal currents can definitely be generated.

I wouldn't doubt at all that field telephones could electrocute under the right circumstances.

10 posted on 12/05/2005 9:16:13 PM PST by LK44-40
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To: caryatid

Hmmmm. How did these bad kids get hold of a "shocking machine"? Are you talking about a phone? Phones used to have a crank. I would like to know what kind of power goes through the crank generator.


11 posted on 12/05/2005 9:16:16 PM PST by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: mozarky2

So how did prisoners get hold of a potentially lethal telephone?


12 posted on 12/05/2005 9:19:10 PM PST by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: Jo Nuvark

Only if you accidently drop it in the bathtub with him........Or is that a blowdryer?? I can't stay "current."


13 posted on 12/05/2005 9:19:50 PM PST by colorcountry (That's what happens when you fall for a pistol. (No, no, I don't mean no gun.))
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To: Jo Nuvark

One can use an AN/PVS-12 (Field Phone) to do this - usually painful, not fatal. It can be made fatal, but why bother - easier to bash the other guy's head in with a rock.


14 posted on 12/05/2005 9:20:23 PM PST by patton ("Hard Drive Cemetary" - forthcoming best seller)
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To: msf92497

[...Kerry is a moron...}

Kerry is strange. I don't know how he has gotten this far. He can't put a coherent thought together. I don't know how he got into the military. Well, yes I do.


15 posted on 12/05/2005 9:20:23 PM PST by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: oyez

[...phone fishin...]

Aha! That's what I'm after. I'm skeptical about the electrical power in those old phones. If you could get them near water... how dangerous could they be?


16 posted on 12/05/2005 9:21:45 PM PST by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: Jo Nuvark
How did these bad kids get hold of a "shocking machine"? Are you talking about a phone?

It was probably an early 'phone. I remember hearing these stories, from another generation, when I was just a kid ... and all I remember is how they laughed about their "shocking machine" and the iron bedsteads. [It was a band of mischievous brothers in action]. LOL

17 posted on 12/05/2005 9:22:42 PM PST by caryatid (Jolie Blonde, 'gardez donc, quoi t'as fait ...)
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To: jocon307

[...skillfully avoiding electrical terms...]

Me too. My husband has explained volts and amps to me a 100 times (maybe 99 times) and I know one kills, the other doesn't. I was shocked once when I was two. Stuck a bobby pin into a light socket. Zowie!


18 posted on 12/05/2005 9:24:24 PM PST by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: Jo Nuvark

The guards had one of the old hand-cranked ones.....


19 posted on 12/05/2005 9:24:52 PM PST by mozarky2 (Ya never stand so tall as when ya stoop to stomp a statist!)
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To: Jo Nuvark
Can you really electrocute someone using a telephone?

How badly do you want to know?

20 posted on 12/05/2005 9:26:20 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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