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Electrical Noise Causing Physiological Stress?
el johnno writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting on possible physiological problems caused by so-called 'dirty electricity.' Poor power quality caused by electrical feedback and harmonics from consumer electronics are cited as a possible cause of various 'physiological stress' problems. While previous research in this area looked for connections between EM fields and cancer, some research is now looking into possible connections to fatigue, headaches, depression, and other symptoms. From the article: 'If electricity were flowing in a constant way, most people's bodies would likely adapt, but with all the interference from modern devices, the resulting fields are too variable for people to get used to.'"
Now I know why I get headaches and feel generally lousy at work. I assumed my job sucked but now I know it's just bad electricity.
Does that mean we've got to don tin foil gowns now?
[blockquote]He began researching the topic when a neighbour expressed the belief that electricity was dangerous. In an act of desperation brought on by constant pain, he did something he initially thought was off-the-wall. He spent $1,000 on filters that, much like surge protectors on a computer, clean up fluctuations and surges in the electricity flowing in the wires around his home.[/blockquote] It never occured to him that it might be about $1,000 cheaper to turn off his electricity for a day or two and see how he felt?
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
'If electricity were flowing in a constant way, most people's bodies would likely adapt, but with all the interference from modern devices, the resulting fields are too variable for people to get used to.'
It's a plot by the Edison company to bring back DC power!
Luckily I'm wearing my AFDB.
"'If electricity were flowing in a constant way, most people's bodies would likely adapt, but with all the interference from modern devices, the resulting fields are too variable for people to get used to.'"
Call this science? what a load of bollocks. This is what you get when you need to print a newspaper every day.
It's psychosomatic. Our RF exposure is only marginally greater when close to devices such as WiFi hotspots because of the immense amount of background EMI from TV and Radio broadcasts, satellites, CB and business radios, power transformers and a million other things. A car produces vast amounts of EMI due to the 15,000v+ HT unit used for sparking. Electricity substations have similar effects. People with your 'condition' seem to be very selective in what seems to have an effect on them, generally only being made 'sick' by obvious and media-hyped sources of EM radiation. Going anywhere near an airport should be next to impossible for you thanks to the powerful radio systems used for communication and RADAR.
If electromagnetic fields at the sort of levels we have in our
enviroment really harmed people then as soon as a bolt of lightning
went off in a nearby storm all these "victims" should keel over and
die given the amount of EM power a single bolt puts out. But you
never hear someone saying "storms make me ill" (unless they got a direct
hit of course!). Far more trendy to make out they're some victim of
modern techno society so they can either kids themselves its someone
elses fault they're ill (and nothing to do with hypocondria or some
other mental condition) or so that they can jump on the compensation
bandwagon.
It's when the bill comes in that I get headaches and become depressed.
According to NewScientist, studies so far haven't found anyone claiming these symptoms who can correctly recognise when these things are turned on. In studies so far, people who claim they're sensitive to this end up showing symptoms when they're exposed to something that's just a LED in a box, and then don't show symptoms when they're in a room where the widget is hidden.
This gives two possibilities:
1) Your symptoms are psychosomatic. Which doesn't mean they don't exist, but there's no physical link between EM radiation and your symptoms, so there's no physical solution possible.
2) You are an exception and genuinely *are* sensitive to EM radiation. In which case you should be contacting the various researchers into this, bcos you may be able to provide the evidence that so far is lacking. You can't guarantee that government would do anything about it, but you might get your symptoms recognised as a genuine medical condition.
I suggest you get your friends to help with experiments. A good initial test would be to have one of your friends turn his wireless network on or off when you come round, and keep notes of the state in a diary. When you come to the door, if you're sensitive then you should be able to notice the wireless network signal, so write down in your diary what you think its state is. Then you compare notes after a month or so. That'll give you some feedback about how your symptoms relate to things. Obviously this might be prone to interference from PCs or TVs on at the same time, but it's a start.
I'm not going to prejudge your specific case. All I can offer is the existing evidence, which says that so far no-one's been found who can do this. As a natural sceptic, I'd personally go with the evidence until someone shows otherwise, but we've got to give people every opportunity to disprove the existing evidence, otherwise it becomes faith-based not evidence-based, and we all know where that bullshit lands you.
Grab.
Then the question is: what is the difference in a construction between a computer CRT and a television CRT that causes the former to be relatively silent? I always assumed that it is the deflector coils that are driven at the hsync frequency. Those coils are big and actually driven at that kind of frequency.
So to dissolve this dispute, I just did an experiment. With a good microphone, I recorded my TV set and then I looked at the waveform in Audacity. I counted 79+/-0.2 oscillations over 5051 microseconds, which gives an acoustic frequency of 15640 +/- 40 Hz for this PAL television. The PAL standard is 625 lines at 50 Hz, factor 2 interleaved, so the hsync frequency is 625*50/2 = 15625 Hz. This is within the margin of error equal to the observed acoustic frequency, which provides strong support for the hypothesis of the horizontal deflection coils causing the high-pitched tone.
For comparison, NTSC is 525 lines at 60/2 Hz, which gives 15750 Hz.
Note that I used an electret microphone which is not sensitive to the magnetic field emitted by the deflection coils.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
I don't normally bother replying to ACs, but I'll make an exception. The article lacks evidence, a hypothesis for causation, uses inaccurate analogies, uses pseudo-scientific terms ('clean' electricity?) and ignores the other massive sources of RF interference in the home such as cars driving past.
Claiming that one can not only directly feel weak fast changing EM fields (light and IR heat excluded!) but no less then also feel the difference in their spectral distribution is just too much of a quackery!
OTOH, he may be honest but barking at wrong tree. When electric power is down, it is not surprising to feel a relief.
Now, there, I am probably not the only one who can say that prolonged exposure to various electric equipment produced, barely audible, sounds (especially high pitch, although hum too) make me feel some of the alleged symptoms. Right now, I hear quite loudly my and/or my coworkers CRT monitor(s) (high voltage transformer ferrite core - magnetostrictive material) and it gives me very unpleasent feeling in my neck. Similar goes for cooling fans hum. And, last but not least, most (cheap) capacitors' dielectrics are piezoelectric materials, so it may happen that some of the HF noise that came from mains "beats" with circuit-generated noise and result is sometimes in audible range.
In last century (give or take a half of century) the noise signature has changed greatly. We have not adapted to that. It seems that authorities (lawmakers) are not aware of magnitude of stress that is imposed on us by noise which is not high in loudness, but just constant and unpleasent/annoying.
Better understanding of the noise phenomenon, better design of electric (electronic) equipment and better health standards should make things bareable. Before anyone invests grands into mains filtering, they should consider good antiphones (both earplugs and earshells), better acoustic insulation for equipment suspected of producing noise and as much time spending outdoors, as far from "funny" sounds as possible.
Don't know about the 50Hz vs 60Hz thing - although I can tell you that as a citizen of a 50Hz country I notice low-level 60Hz hum, whereas I can't normally hear 50Hz hum.
However, I suspect you're on to something with transformer hum. Or, more specifically, general low-level noise. My story:
After some fairly major work-related stress, I found I just couldn't sleep properly. Tried the usual things - traditional & non-traditional drugs, meditation, etc - nothing worked for long. But I noticed on some nights I slept much better than others. After a few months I noticed the nights I slept better were the nights when the computers, 2 and 3 rooms away from my bedroom (with closed doors between me and them), were turned off.
Note that these machines are all built to be low-noise - Antec Sonata cases, large low-speed thermostat controlled fans, Zalman heatsinks, low-noise PSUs, etc. They're quiet - in normal use, sitting in front of them, they're barely audible. I definitely couldn't consciously hear them from my bedroom, even in the dead of night. But there was a definite correlation between whether they were on or off, and my sleep quality. Not (consciously) psychosomatic either - remember, it was only after I noticed variations in my sleep quality that I found it correlated to whether they were turned on or off.
Since then, I turn off everything that makes noise, no matter how low level. Computers (unless they're processing something), PVR (unless it's recording something), printer, computer speakers - basically everything that doesn't need to run overnight. I've noticed a definite improvement in my sleep quality (and general stress levels too). Yes, I'm prepared to accept that this part of it could be psychosomatic. But, if it helps me sleep better, I don't give a damn...
So, from my little ad-hoc experiment, I'm quite prepared to believe that continuous low-level noise - or possibly even EM fields - at subconscious levels can have a detrimental affect.
Call me a hypersensitive freak, call me self-deluding, call me a fringe-dwelling tree-hugging anti-technology neo-luddite. I don't care. I'll be sleeping well tonight...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
"It is more than obvious now that we there is a serious problem with some people having a suceptability to certian frequencies and that those frequencies may not be the same for everyone affected."
So, since it's more than obvious (huh? What is "more" than obvious?) you should have no trouble providing the peer reviewed research.
The fact that you've assumed something is more than obvious, despite a dearth of supporting research, calls your motives into question.
"The fact that experiments may not show true correlation for specific frequencies does not disprove the problems."
Really? I thought that's exactly what they showed. Silly me.
How can we take you seriously when you dismiss the research you don't like and drawn a conclusion you do like (based on NO research) all in the same post.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...