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ELF Knocks Down AM Towers To Save Earth, Intercoms

ScentCone writes "The ELF (Earth Liberation Front) has claimed responsibility for destroying the primary AM towers used by radio station KRKO in Washington state. From their statement: 'AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.' The poor intercom performance must have been the last straw."

25 of 616 comments (clear)

  1. Citation Needed by slifox · · Score: 5, Informative

    AM radio causes cancer?

    I'm from Jamaica, the show-me island. So show me you're blowing it out your fanny!
    (obligatory Futurama reference)

    I wonder if any of these ELF people understand physics... Radio behaves according to the inverse square law; in effect, your cellphone exposes you to much more power than all the cell towers around you, simply due to it being much closer. Similarly, any local transmitter you have (e.g. microwave ovens, CRTs, wifi APs, high-speed digital circuitry, etc) will expose you to more power than those far-away broadcast towers. Unless the AM radio tower is in your backyard, you are probably not in tremendous danger...

    ...well maybe your home intercom *is* in danger... won't someone please think of the intercoms?!?

    1. Re:Citation Needed by slifox · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not to mention that at 1700KHz (the upper end of AM medium wave radio), the ideal quarter-wavelength antenna is around 144 feet long.

      Ignoring the fact that we aren't very good conductors... at 5-6 feet tall, I doubt the human body can effectively absorb a lot of this relatively very-long-wavelength radiation.

      Does anyone have actual data or methods to predict this kind of effect on human bodies?

    2. Re:Citation Needed by blincoln · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ignoring the fact that we aren't very good conductors... at 5-6 feet tall, I doubt the human body can effectively absorb a lot of this relatively very-long-wavelength radiation.

      In addition to all of that, there's a reason EM radiation of longer wavelengths is called "non-ionizing". Hint: it's because it's incapable of ionizing anything.

      --
      "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
    3. Re:Citation Needed by digitig · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not to mention -- how on earth does the method of modulation make a difference?

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    4. Re:Citation Needed by anotheregomaniac · · Score: 5, Informative

      General information can be found in this FAQ: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html and in particular in FCC bulletin 56 page 15: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/info/documents/bulletins/#56

      The maximum permissible exposure to the general public from a radiator must be lower than the prescribed limits outside of the fence line. Lower frequencies, like AM radio, have a much higher permissible power than the frequencies used in cell phones or WiFi because the biological effect is less.

      They fact that they mention interference to intercoms would lead one to think one of those involved may live nearby or near another antenna.

    5. Re:Citation Needed by jpmorgan · · Score: 5, Funny

      Electrical engineering makes mother earth cry!

    6. Re:Citation Needed by siloko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You guys are missing the point - when vandals want to vandalise they will, if they are middle class they will try and justify it under some 'flavour of the month' banner, such as the Earth Liberation Front. Whose earth? They ain't liberating MY earth because the one I live on has no relation to one where radio waves cause cancer . . . maybe I'm just hung up on evidence!

    7. Re:Citation Needed by Green+Monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wonder if any of these ELF people understand physics

      Oh, there's no need to wonder. The answer is: No, they don't.

      --

      Green Monkey

    8. Re:Citation Needed by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Informative

      there's a reason EM radiation of longer wavelengths is called "non-ionizing". Hint: it's because it's incapable of ionizing anything.

      The fact that radiation is not ionizing anything does not imply that it has no effect on living tissue. It could induce microcurrents in some tissues, or cause certain molecules to resonate in a way which affected important chemical reactions.

      Which is not to say that AM radio does have any effect, only that "it's not ionizing!" is not a refutation.

      Biological systems are complex; if something as relatively simple as a computer can be effected by EM radiation, it's not completely batty to speculate that biological systems might be also. There are a few studies -- such as this one -- that have suggested effects on cerebral blood flow or on sleep patterns, but the data remains spotty at best.

      I repeat, I'm not claiming that such effects exist, nor am I defending this vandalism. (Calling it "terrorism" is, of course, ridiculous.) But claiming that EM radiation can't have any health effects because it's not ionizing is bad science.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  2. Idiots. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What a bunch of fucking idiots.

    1. Re:Idiots. by digitig · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, I do hope not -- I hate to think that they might reproduce :-(

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    2. Re:Idiots. by earthloop · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unlikely. The AM broadcasts saw to that.

  3. REALLY? by DurendalMac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh my God, these ELF guys are dumber than a box of hammers. Put their brains in a matchbox and they'll rattle around like a bunch of bbs in a boxcar. Where the hell is the science that shows an AM tower a mile away from your home is giving you cancer? Or hell, a hundred meters from your home? These retards will believe whatever junk science validates their owned warped view and they never fucking question it, defending it to the death. Fuck 'em. Lock these idiots up.

  4. Unnecessarily destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They should have just wrapped the towers in tin foil.

  5. Morons! by Null+Nihils · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The electromagnetic spectrum is not a hard concept to grasp. Radio waves are about the most harmless radiation there is. They have a lower frequency than microwaves, infrared, or fucking ordinary visible light. Are they going to blow up the sun next?

    Yet another group of ignorant children playing dangerous games in the adult world. Sigh.

    1. Re:Morons! by Ardaen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is easy for us on Slashdot to see how stupid this is. But you are talking about a country where a large portion of the population prides themselves in being ignorant and rejecting good science for 'alternative theories'.

  6. This is why we need science education by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Say it with me:

    "This is why we need science education"
    "This is why we need science education"
    "This is why we need science education"

  7. Why? by DesScorp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the "treehugging" qualifier?

    Because these people don't want to "save" the planet for man... they place the planet above man. They view this not as our home, but view people as inferior, a parasite on their world. We call them treehuggers because these people are essentially a pagan earth cult. They're a Gaia-worshipping Luddite movement.

    --
    Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  8. "Almost"? by DesScorp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Y'know, I can almost respect them for torching SUVs "

    If you can almost respect them for destroying someone else's property, then you're almost as much as asshole as they are.

    --
    Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  9. Doubt it was ELF by Nethead · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Disclaimers: I live a few houses down from the station owner, so I've followed this for a while. I was a broadcast engineer in a past life (even did some contracting at a former iteration of this station.)

    Here is the story from the local paper: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090905/NEWS01/709059909&news01ad=1 (good set of pictures)

    From the Seattle Times version: "Andy Skotdal, general manager of the family-owned sports-radio station, isn't convinced ELF is responsible, even though the group's North American press office in Washington, D.C., issued a news release and posted an item on its national Web site Friday saying it was.

    He suspects disgruntled locals who have long opposed the siting of the towers on 40 acres of farmland may have taken matters into their own hands after losing a key ruling in King County Superior Court a few weeks ago.

    "My suspicion is, it's somebody local," Skotdal, whose family has owned the station for 20 years, said by phone Friday as he watched dozens of sheriff's detectives and FBI agents comb the property for evidence. "It could be somebody painting ELF on a banner to throw off suspicion."

    In the same story, the FBI sees a few things that point to ELF but they are only a day into the investigation. I'd lay away from making a call right now on who is responsible.

    Either way, stealing a excavator, driving it through a muddy field and pulling down two towers has to leave a good amount of evidence. I'm also thinking that the guy wires must have been cut too, just to keep from kill the machine operator on the first tower.

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  10. Nobody likes ELF. Not even their "allies." by Valdrax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you want to repeat history, by all means, crack down on the ELF and send them all to prison and beat up anyone in the group. Throw the PATRIOT act in their faces. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. And erode public support as more and more people are locked up by guilt from association.

    I agree with all of your post except this point. Unlike many Islamic terrorist groups, the ELF rarely if ever takes any sort of positive action "back home" to draw in sympathy (e.g. Hamas and Hezbollah run charity hospitals). Additionally, those organizations have an enemy that is widely reviled by their neighbors and considered a threat to their lives and way of life (i.e. Israel and the US). Sympathy for terrorism only happens when normal people feel there's some sort justification for the terrorists' actions.

    ELF, in contrast, strikes out seemingly randomly at many targets that are not nearly the worst offenders, like the radio station here or by burning an entire car dealership for selling SUVs. Worse for them, the rest of the green movement is generally filled with people who respect principles of nonviolence and wouldn't support such against against even the worst offenders. That's why next to no one has any sympathy for ELF; they're practically green anarchists. I'm about as tree-hugging as you can get, but absolutely NO environmentalist that I know has ANY sympathy for these losers.

    Personally, I'd be happy if they were all locked up so that those of us who aren't violent radicals wouldn't have to have them used against us by people on the other side of the debate.

    --
    If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
  11. ELF by Dwedit · · Score: 5, Funny

    I always knew that GCC produced gigantic ELF files, but big enough to knock over an AM tower? This is just ridiculous.

  12. Re:Stop this now. by zach_the_lizard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps it has to do with the fact that PETA kills animals. Not a handful of animals. Thousands.

    Perhaps it also has to do with calling feeding kids meat child abuse.

    Maybe it could be with this not so tactful ad.

    Or maybe he's offended by PETA's ads that make mothers out to be murderers.

    Then PETA goes on to say that dad's a psychopathic killer.

    --
    SSC
  13. Re:non-ionizing means no chemical reactions. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That would also be known as "an increase in temperature"

    If inducing a current merely causes "an increase in temperature", please explain how radio communication works...

    At the broadest perspective, sure, any energy input is "an increase in temperature". When you set up your crystal radio to receive AM transmissions, yes indeedy, the thing does warm up a bit as it absorbs EM radiation. (Even though some if it is turned into mechanical energy in the earpiece, it's not 100% efficient.) But describing the operation of the radio as "an increase in temperature" is misleading, to put it kindly.

    Can non-ionizing EM radiation have an effect on biological systems? You are, quite literally, looking at the answer.

    Can EM radiation in the radio range at low intensity have an effect on biological systems? I dunno. Consider the hot and cold spots that arise as you microwave your burrito. Could very mild but uneven heating have an effect?

    If the radiation is non-ionizing then it does not induce any chemical reactions, nothing changes (except maybe something gets a little warmer).

    If something "gets a little warmer", chemical reactions are affected. If you don't understand this last sentence then please go take a chemistry class and come back.

    The scientific way of answering the question "does EM radiation effect biological systems" is to observe biological systems that have been exposed to various sorts of EM radiation and see if there are any effects. Saying "our models don't allow for such effects, therefore they cannot exist" is faith-based reasoning, not science.

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  14. Re:Stop this now. by bendodge · · Score: 5, Informative

    In 2006 PETA found new homes for a grand total of 12 animals on a $31m budget. The rest were killed.
    Source: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=288&issue=021

    --
    The government can't save you.