longsteve3
posted this
05 December 2020
You'd have a hard time doing this. Electric blasting (eb) caps use a "bridge wire," similar to a light bulb filament to start the powder train going. There's typically enough static electricity in your hair, clothing, even dust blowing in dry air to initiate an eb cap. Induced stray currents from radio transmissions or high tension power lines could also be a risk. This is why eb caps are shipped and stored with the leg wires shunted and you see the "Blasting Zone- Turn Off 2-Way Radio" signs. When an electrically fired shot is wired up, there's a lot of wire spread out on top of the ground in series or series-in-parallel circuits. It could act as a large antenna array. Now this: in over 40 years working in the industry, I've never seen or heard of a single incident involving a radio frequency premature detonation, and we are talking devices DESIGNED to go off with minuscule amounts of electricity.
Center fire primers are essentially a metal can that would be self shielding in terms of electrical energy reaching the explosive material. There is little chance of any sort that a radio transmission would pose any hazard whatsoever. Especially considering commercial broadcast - radio and television - can be in the range of hundreds of thousands of watts, megawatts even, of effective radiated power. Orders of magnitude greater than typical amateur radio transmission.
That, and the fact I'm here to talk about it after near half a century of reloading and load it up and blow it up activities, large and small.
73 de Steve, KB2DAJ
"Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here"