Cell Phone Radiation Chart

BjB writes "CNet has an interesting article on Cell phone radiation. More interesting is that they've included a chart of the radiation levels that various models of cell phones produce. They've even gone through the trouble of showing the highest and lowest on separate pages. It's lovely to see that your cell phone is #2..." Mine is in the middle of the pack... course, I'm not exactly reassured by that fact.

Comments

Why did they bother?

[Bruce Perens]

This is an extremely silly rating. The radiation output is a function of effective RF power, which is the same for all of those phones for a particular frequency and mode. There are three frequency bands and three modes found in common cell phones. If they'd just rated those, it would have been enough.

Also, your phone changes its power depending on how much is necessary to reach the cell base. If you are close to the cell and in line-of-sight, your phone will emit less RF.

And nobody's mentioning the most important factor, the inverse square law. Exposure decreases as the square of distance - which means don't hold it up to your head if you're worried, use a headset or a roof antenna on your car.

Bruce

Re:rats

[magic]

Fortunately, no human would ever be locked in a small box or maze with electronic equipment all around.

Oh wait... what exactly is the difference between a rat in a lab and working in a cubicle under flourescent lights surrounded by monitors, phones, power lines, and CPU's?

-m

Quack alert: EMF is non-ionizing, dudes.

[Tackhead]

I don't get it. EMF is non-ionizing radiation. I haven't seen any credible evidence that there's a risk posed by cell phones or power lines, and neither do many people with clue.

As for the suggestion that the phone be housed in a Faraday cage, uh, wouldn't that kinda defeat the purpose of a cell phone?

Bottom line. Not everything with the word "radiation" is bad for you. Don't believe the hype, believe the physics.

(For that matter, not everything with the word "nuclear" is bad for you either. But that's another story.)

rats

[twitter]

I've seen a study like that too. The rats were arrayed in tubes around a transmitter. Some more rats were arrayed without a transmitter, and still more rats were allowed to run free in their cages. The conclusion was that restraining rats in tubes causes all sorts of health problems.

They should raise the amount of radiation

[Bad_CRC]

that way, all of the people who insist on driving with a phone stuck to their face instead of watching the road will die more quickly.

Just a thought.

________