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Another Reason to be Annoyed by Cell Phones
lotussuper7 writes: "This story at newscientist (free, no registration, unlike the NY Times) has some insight into the amount of RF you may be getting from all those cell phones people around you are using. Might be time to buy a cell phone jammer."
Reduce your exposure to RF emissions by carrying around a powerful RF transmitter! Sure, that'll do the trick.
While everyone else is getting brain cancer, I've been wearing my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie for years.
Just a myriad of uses for these things...
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
People are worried because of the word "microwave". A mobile phone cannot produce any great amount of RF heating, for a few simple reasons.
A microwave cooker uses a very high power magnetron (usually >500W), directed in a narrow, focused beam, into a resonant cavity (the oven itself) from a distance of around 6". Furthermore, the oven uses a specific frequency, much below which RF heating is much weaker, and you need a lot more power (somewhere around 2.45GHz).
Now, a mobile phone uses around 1 or 2 watts *peak*. In normal use, it won't go above 500mW rms, otherwise the batteries would last only a few minutes. Not only that, but the antenna is designed to spread the signal over a wide area.
Mobile phone cell towers are also pretty much safe - although they use a much higher power than phones (15W or so, IIRC) they tend to be stuck up on high poles, well away from people. Inverse Square Law, anyone?
Here in Scotland, we recently had a series of large protests about siting cell towers near schools. The protesters were mainly middle-class mothers, from supposedly posh parts of Glasgow. Damn near all of them had sunbed tans. I'd take my chances with a mobile phone cell tower before I'd risk skin cancer from a sunbed...
Radiation found to be harmful, largest Radiation source found to be the Sun, blow up the Sun advises Slashdot.
Scientists claim radiation can be use to kill cancer, carry more mobile phones advises Slashdot.
Living in City can lead to lung disease, move to the country advises Slashdot.
Living in country results in lower salaries, move to City advises Slashdot.
Car pollution causes Global warming, buy bigger cars advises Slashdot.
Is there a risk from this RF, yup, is there more of a risk from people driving while using a mobile than from this... oh boy yes. Is there a risk from Coal fired powerstations from radiation... oh wow yes.
Passive Mobile phone usage, Caligormia to legislate.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Why does everybody still take this stuff seriously? Read the article- all this study does is establish that you get exposed to more RF radiation in a crowded train car than you do in other places. The scary part only comes in when it brings up these "international guidelines" which such exposure may exceed. Who established these guidelines, and how? The article does not say anything beyond the name of the organization, but I note that its name makes it sound like an independent, non-governmental organization- so this could be effectively anybody smart enough to give themselves a clever-sounding name
The idea that RF transmissions will kill you or cause cancer has a long and ugly history of bad science concealed by calculated emotional appeals. It was basically started by a guy whose wife (who used a cell phone a lot) died of brain cancer, from which he concluded that cell phones cause cancer. Most of the "science" that has been done on this issue is basically the same idiotic reasoning dressed up in white lab coats. It is highly likely that the organization setting this 'standard' is in fact one of the lobbying groups associated with the anti-cell-phone movement.
Consider- radio waves are extremely low-energy- far below the threshold necessary to break molecular bonds, which is how genuine cancer-causing radiation works. Thus, if RF waves do cause cancer, the mechanism by which they do this is A. different than for other sorts of radiation, and B. totally unknown.
Plus, as has been pointed out a million times, a 'jammer' is a device which drowns out a signal by emitting a much more powerful signal of its own, not by magically making the other signal go away. If RF waves give you cancer, the jammer will give you cancer faster.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
As someone who has been in a few large substations, and near to high power transmitters, they do have effect on your body. You feel dizzy and ill after being near to these sites - there are no two ways about this. Many others claim this as well.
Phones may not do this to such a great extent - but open up one of the many "monkey drum" microwave dishes found all over the place in the UK, and the USA as well I should imagine. What do you find? A conventional cooking microwave magnetron. Ok, slightly different, and usually of a lower power.
Radar can produce huge bursts of power - and round radar sites, there are exclusion zones to stop you receiving a dose large enough to make you infertile or even kill you. Precision Approach Radar can be very dangerous in this respect due to the fact that the frequency and power used are dangerous, the dishes are located at ground level, and some of them can rotate 360 degress in seconds (the unit has to realign when different runways are used, and if you are in the way). Yes, this is an extreme case... but it still shows something.
I think that dismissing RF as safe because it doesn't cause ionisation or heating is stupid. In the same way as smoking was once viewed as safe, and that skin cancer has only been noticed very recently. Often our bodies do not behave in the ways which we think they should. I just think we should wait to see all the evidence before we jump to conclusions.
Surely electric currents in the brain are affected by RF? Do we know if this is bad or not? People also die when they are using their phone and can't pay full attention to the situation they are in.
Other issues are that when many radio waves are in a small space, they do not always combine to produce the same frequencies. Harmonics and other frequencies are generated, so saying that the frequency that the phone transmits is not dangerous doesn't mean the area is. Powers can also mount up.....
And jammers tend not to be high power - they disrupt the signal in a more clever manner. Although in the short term, the phones will transmit with more power, people will turn them off or the phones will stop trying so regularly.
I don't have a mobile. I don't want one mainly for the reason I don't want to be conctacted when someone doesn't know where I am. Landlines tend to be cheaper as well.
If you don't like cell phones, then go find somewhere that doesn't have them.
You can't escape them, so stop trying...
My great-grandfather was annoyed by cars. My grandfather was annoyed by the TV. He never like it except when he was watching it. My parents are annoyed by call waiting and so I still get busy signals. My wife is annoyed by cell phones. I'm sure my children's mega-PDA-communicator-multimedia-device will get on my nerves too.
Buy you know what? That's technology. Get used to it.
-Russ
Me
How much RF will you soak up when you have a device in your pocket that will have to put out a 50-100 watt RF spike into every 1 khz of a 50-100 MHz wide frequency BAND? Your ass will melt. Besides: you're not soaking up that much RF from other people's mobiles, not compared to what they do, and if I were you I wouldn't worry so much about a few watts from a tower: if you want something RF to cry about, how about that 50+ kHz wide 50 MEGAWATT radio station that you live only a few miles away from, that's blasting you much harder than a tiny little cell phone tower. Sheesh!
I will agree with you, though, if you say a no-phone section ought to be created in resteraunts. You don't just drop your pants and crap on the floor at a restaurant, do you? No, you get up and excuse yourself and go to the bathroom. That's what people should do when the get or have to make a call in a busy social situ. Plus, all CP's should have a silent ringer.
Indeed, if you're in a restaurant, and someone starts gabbing and laughing on a cellphone right at his table, just go over to his table, pull down your pants, and take a shit right on his table, (preferably in his food, or his lap). When he says "hey!" Tell him, that that is what he is doing to your meal by yacking on his phone while you're trying to eat.
Just a suggestion anyway.
we happen to know that electromagnetic radiation isn't very good for your health.
What's even worse is there's never been a full-scale study about the dangers of Light bulbs. Just look at them (figuratively, I mean) radiating electromagnetic radiation everywhere. I mean, your house is full of the damn things, and those evil light bulb companies don't want us to know the truth.
Turn off the lights!!!
-Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
First, I don't see all these supposive people dropping dead from RF over-exposure via cell phones. Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's one giant conspiracy. Right. Second, I think the person who has the most to worry about is the user. We're not talking second hand smoke here. The power at range just isn't significant to harm a 3rd party. Third, your worried about cellphones when you probably drive through a myriad of high intensity EM fields everyday!? Take a florecent light and walk under some high-tension power lines one of these days. Or put one in a mirowave. I'm sure you'll find the effect enlightening. Funny how a cellphone doesn't produce either of these effects, but it just happens to be everybodies whipping-boy of the day. I love it.
And you actually want to jam cell phone calls? I hope those people get their asses sued off the day somebody tries to phone in a life threatening injury but can't. If you have the right to jam my phone, I must have the right to slash your tires to keep from annoying me. I can't wait until they make jamming triangulators so they can find you, beat your sorry butt down and break your little toy. heh.
Ironically, I'm betting your little jammer will produce more EM radiation than a cellphone. I used to work on EA-6b Prowlers in the navy and you're going to have a tough time jamming without generating an equal or greater amount of power than the source. That, and the greater the range, the more power it'll require. Have fun irradiating yourself, chumps.
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