Is it dangerous to use a cell phone during a thunderstorm, as it is with a

land phone?

:sarcasm:

It's only actual wired telephone lines (or any other plugged in appliance) may pose a risk.

one of those wireless headphones in order to hear the t.v. without blasting everyone out of the house. Are those dangerous to use during lightning?

The key is that they're wireless...

are a boon when a person can't hear very good. They even work when the t.v. is muted.

if she could get electrocuted by stepping on the electric tram tracks in the street.

The answer was, "Only if you put one foot on the track and the other on the overhead wire..."

News to me. And probably to anyone else who knows anything about electricity.

That was some shit your mother made up so you wouldn't talk on the phone so much.

Claim: lightening strikes have killed people who were talking on the telephone
Status: true

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/phone.asp

About 60 people are killed by lightening each year. Maybe one of them because they talked on the phone.

I'll take my chances.

--imm

There are lots of suppression devices along the line that provide a much better conductive path that the person holding the phone. Also given that the current flow in a lightning strike is actually from the ground up, I suspect that in at least some of those cases the strike was coincidental to the use of the "instrument".

Point being it is safe (or at least a lot safer than many other activities we do day to day) to talk on the phone during a storm. The act of having an open phone line does not attract lightning...which I think was what the OP was about.

On edit: It is still a good idea to unplug your expensive electronic equipment. Lighting strikes that happen even miles away can still cause power spikes, surges, and sags which can cause damage to your electrical stuff.

If you live in an area with frequent lightning, a whole-house surge suppressor in a really good idea.

lightning-rods antennas on the roof.. My Aunt & Uncle had a tv FRIED when lightning hit their antenna...back int he '60's.. they paid a BUNDLE for that big old Curtis-Mathis color behemoth in a mahogany cabinet..

The TV glowed and crackled like Al Bundy trying trying to fix an outlet. It was pretty cool expect back then you had to take out a second mortgage to buy a TV.

Next time it happened when I lived in Denver I was prepared. A direct hit on the antenna, and the only damage was the fried ground wire left some little burn marks in the paint.

Even if the antenna is grounded.

Most homes "back home" still have outdoor antennas - ungrounded. Those lightning strikes are just as capable of frying that flashy new 52" LED flatscreen as it can those big old cathode ray tube sets of old.

All my family I know do unplug the TV antenna when there's a thunderstorm about (fortunately not too frequently). We stop using the computer and such... our antenna is in the attic so less likely to get fried.

Mark.

:shrug:

The phone is no problem, but the lightening is dangerous all by itself.
Warnings to be "indoors" are automatically stated during storm forecasts.