I have a feeling that it would have taken more to smoke it if it were turned off but still exposed to the fields. Antennas are supposed to absorb energy. A strong enough field would smoke the junction anyway, but with power on the strong field would have turned the transistor on harder and probably hurt it more. I was pretty close. It didn't hurt my camera, but my camera does not have antennas and the rest of the GPS is fine, just the antenna amplifiers are smoked. Makes me wonder about those "California" curly light bulbs and the radio energy they put out, I wonder if a GPS would burn up next to them? Those lights are not as safe as incandescent.
Jim