- Cellphone Tower Radiation - tomorrow i must decide

[ZapperZ]

I have been able to delay my decision for 2 more days.

I can understand that issues like these have been brought up many times before,
and that you have started to become irritated by them.

Because no body has offered me the comparison i was looking for, i have not made my decision yet.
I know you guys are passionate about science and you have great faith in the scientific research that says it is not harmful.

my decision will still be based though on the comparison of the strength of the Electromagnetic field being put out from that tower...
at the height and distance from the appartment i talked about earlier.

i am convinced that some people can really feel electromagnetic fields.
if some people can feel it, then I'm not surprised they can cause headaches or other physical symptoms.

BUT, as you all say: the EMF's are everywhere.
If i see the EMF-field close to that tower is not significantly higher than anywhere else...

then i will have no problem to continue to live there.

But then, you need to understand some established basic physics. In this one, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for. The "strength" of the field is quite irrelevant as far as the energy in these EM photons. We can clearly see this in the standard photoelectric effect. No matter how strong the field is (as in the variation of the amplitude), the form of ionization that has been known to cause mutation simply cannot happen at frequency below the threshold.

This is why, when people talk about the strength of the EM field (without any change to the EM frequency range), most of us scratches our head wondering why it would make a difference.

As for people who somehow claim to can feel EM field, there have been no such claim that can be verified. See here:

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070723/full/news070723-8.html

So in fact, we have evidence to the contrary. As with the placebo effect, merely believing in something is enough to trigger a physiological response. But this is completely different than assigning a cause-and-effect to a particular trigger. This is what most of the public have a hard time in understanding - that correlation does NOT imply causation.

Zz.

 

[Pengwuino]

I know you guys are passionate about science and you have great faith in the scientific research that says it is not harmful.

This isn't a matter of faith. Many people here are practicing physicists and engineers. I would trust them.

By the way, humans radiate something like 100W of electromagnetic radiation. So be careful at large gatherings of people

 

[radiationman]

How many double blind studies on ES has been done?

If multiple studies give these same results, then I will believe ES is a myth.
If it's only that one study though, their testing method (THE EMF they produced)
might not have been the same kind of EMF like that which floats around in the "real world".

Has Prof. Jørgen Bach Andersen already published his result on the research done on ES?

 

[DaleSwanson]

First, as others have said V/m and "gauss" aren't the correct units. I think perhaps you are misremembering w/m² or watts per square meter. Second, power drops off at a rate governed by something called the inverse square law. That simply means as distance increases the power drops off faster and faster. It is simple to understand why. Imagine an antenna that puts out 1 watt. At 1 meter away that watt covers an area the size of a sphere with a radius of 1 meter. At 10 meters the same watt has to cover a much larger sphere with a radius of 10 meters. The total power covering the sphere at any distance remains constant, but the power absorbed by some object of constant size (e.g. a human body) goes down dramatically. This is the reason why a light looks dimmer as you get farther from it. By the way, visible light is electromagnetic radiation the same as radio waves or microwaves, just a different frequency. In fact, visible light is higher frequency (and thus higher energy). Radio < microwaves < infrared < visible < UV < X-ray < gamma.

Anyway, calculating how many watts per square meter is easy (and in case it's not obvious the people here want you to calculate it in the hopes of learning something). Simply find the surface area of a sphere with a radius equal to the distance from the antenna. Once you've found the surface area divide the power output of the antenna by the area to get the watts per square meter.

At 75 m horizontal and 25 m vertical you are about 80 m in a straight line from the antenna. Surface area of a sphere is 4 x pi x r². Russ has provided power outputs of 1 watt for a wifi router, and 100 watts for a cell phone antenna.

 

[radiationman]

This is two strange languages at the same time for me.
Mathematics and english. I have really tried to make sense of what you mean,
but can't figure it out!

Let's please get it over with, and give me the results... please .
And also needed: more links to double blind studies on ES :)

 

[JaredJames]

How many double blind studies on ES has been done?

If multiple studies give these same results, then I will believe ES is a myth.
If it's only that one study though, their testing method (THE EMF they produced)
might not have been the same kind of EMF like that which floats around in the "real world".

Let's not go into this whole "different to the real world" rubbish. They tested it with a mobile phone base station setup. Identical to the real world.

I suggest you read the report and stop looking for excuses - that is what crackpots do and you are now clutching at straws to defend you obviously flawed beliefs.

Has Prof. Jørgen Bach Andersen already published his result on the research done on ES?

Well the University of Essex performed the study and it was over 3 years. Yes, they have been published as far as I'm aware.

Let's put this another way. We have verifiable, mainstream scientific evidence showing it isn't real. You have nothing aside from, based on a quick Google, a load of crackpot sites. Which is the logical one to believe? Which one proves what they claim?

 

[JaredJames]

Let's please get it over with, and give me the results... please .

You have the maths, plug in the numbers. You might learn something interesting.

And also needed: more links to double blind studies on ES :)

Google is your friend.

 

[radiationman]

I used an online translator to help with the english and came to this conclusion

100 : (4 x 3.1415 x 80²) = 0.00124 W/m²

the wikipedia page on electrosensitivity talks about 30+ double blind studies that proved how people who claimed to be ES could not distinguish between real and fake EMF.

if the electrosensitives would doubt scientific experiments,
then a group of electrosensitives could easily and very cheaply make such a scientific double blind study by themselves...
but after all these years they have not.

so, the lack of double blinds that prove ES exists
and the abundance of double blinds that prove ES is (always?) psychosomatic...

is convincing me that ES is in fact a myth.

 

[rcgldr]

Extreme levels of EMF can be felt. Some base (parachute) jumpers were doing jumps from a high powered AM radio tower (it had an elevator). If they went to the top level, near the 50,000 watt antenna, they would get headaches if they stayed there for more than a few seconds. The field was strong enough to mess up the camcorder recordings they were making. Probably wasn't a healthy activity, but then again, they're base jumpers.

 

[JaredJames]

Extreme levels of EMF can be felt. Some base (parachute) jumpers were doing jumps from a high powered AM radio tower (it had an elevator). If they went to the top level, near the 50,000 watt antenna, they would get headaches if they stayed there for more than a few seconds. The field was strong enough to mess up the camcorder recordings they were making. Probably wasn't a healthy activity, but then again, they're base jumpers.

This has little bearing on the 'electrosensitivity' issue. Purely because of the levels being discussed.

I have no doubt that given enough energy there would be some effect, but these levels are extreme to say the least, and do not indicate a person is 'electrosensitive' in any way.

 

[PhanthomJay]

Extreme levels of EMF can be felt. Some base (parachute) jumpers were doing jumps from a high powered AM radio tower (it had an elevator). If they went to the top level, near the 50,000 watt antenna, they would get headaches if they stayed there for more than a few seconds. The field was strong enough to mess up the camcorder recordings they were making.

Well that's just great, if radiationman has read this, he's heading for parts unknown about now...

 

[JaredJames]

Well that's just great, if radiationman has read this, he's heading for parts unknown about now...

In all seriousness, it's the reason why I got my disclaimer in ASAP.

 

[radiationman]

how much is the natural human energy field by the way?

 

[JaredJames]

"natural human energy field"?

We are potentially straying way too far into pseudoscience here.

I assume you mean energy output of a human, which is around 100W.

 

[Drakkith]

"natural human energy field"?

We are potentially straying way too far into pseudoscience here.

I assume you mean energy output of a human, which is around 100W.

And "output" means that your body is using chemical reactions to produce heat and energy to use to live, not that there's some sort of 100W electric field around everyone.

 

[JaredJames]

And "output" means that your body is using chemical reactions to produce heat and energy to use to live, not that there's some sort of 100W electric field around everyone.

Yes, well spotted.

 

[radiationman]

thanks

 

[PhanthomJay]

You are wise to seek advice in order to make an informed decision. Personally, given a choice, i wouldn't want an ugly cell phone tower in my backyard (NIMBY) unless it was well screened by trees, or looked like one:

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/08/tower/source/1.htm

 

[sophiecentaur]

I got an email notification about a post on this thread by Mr.Wendell but it doesn't appear to be here. Has it been deleted? I have had this problem before and it is confusing. If the post has been removed, would it not be possible to indicate as much - or at least keep to the hash numbers as they were, so that there would be an obvious gap in the sequence on the thread?

 

[JaredJames]

He did post and used unacceptable links to support his arguments (crackpot website).

If the posts aren't in the thread it's a sign they've been deleted for whatever reason. Personally I think having inconsistent post numbers would only serve to confuse people even more.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Would it be difficult just to say "Post #345 deleted" in it place. No explanation would be necessary and it would not be at all confusing - for you or for me! ;-)

Websites do 'break' sometimes and a naughty contributor may not get the message. (May not read PMs either)

 

[Borek]

Yes, posts have been deleted, sorry for the confusion.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I'm not ratty about this ( ) but sometimes an old geezer can easily be confused ( ). I'm sure that this is sorted on other forums so it can't be too hard to do.

 

[Galaxyman]

Does it matter? No one on this half of the planet is going to give up their cellular device regardless.. And once more another good reason to take your phone from your face and text

 

[Borek]

Topic locked. Decision was made on January 6^th.