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Killer Apartment Vs. Persistent Microwave Exposure?
An anonymous reader writes "I am considering buying a penthouse apartment in Manhattan that happens to be about twenty feet away from a pair of panel antennas belonging to a major cellular carrier. The antennas are on roughly the same plane as the apartment and point in its direction. I have sifted through a lot of information online about cell towers, most of which suggest that the radiation they emit is low-level and benign. Most of this information, however, seems to concern ground-level exposure at non-regular intervals. My question to Slashdot is: should the prospect of persistent exposure to microwave radiation from this pair of antennas sitting twenty feet from where I rest my head worry me? Am I just being a jackass? Can I, perhaps, line the walls of the place with a tight metal mesh and thereby deflect the radiation? My background is in computer engineering — I am not particularly knowledgeable about the physics of devices such as these. Please help me make an enlightened decision."
Tin foil suit.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
...for your problem.
Right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1pv16G-liw
Agreed. Notice that you referred to the space as a "killer" apartment.
1) Buy it. ...
2) Sue phone company
3)
4) profit!!!!!!!
At the bottom of the
But RF is mostly LoS (Line of Sight), anything blocking is reflected, absorbed or transmissive.
If you have solid walls (eg concrete), I wouldn't worry about it. Glass, you should be okay. But if it's like wood or plaster, the particles in these materials don't really block anything, so it's mostly transmissive. That's why you may get great reception in a wood frame house, but not in it's basement.
Basic analogy:
If you put a translucent material in front of a lightbulb, you can see the lightbulb, but if you put metal foil, you can see around the foil. Therefor you reduce, but not eliminate your exposure.
If you are seriously worried, grab a CFL tube or a large fluorescent light and hold it outside and inside the building. If it actually glows outside the building, I'd be wary. If it glows inside the building, don't buy it.
Mobile company raised cell tower next to some village. Locals complained about health problems caused by this tower. When contacted cell company CEO replied:
- That's nothing. Wait and see what happens when we turn it on.
Ask the landlord to relocate the cell-phone towers.
This strategy is quite effective in dealing with obstinate landlords. I should know since I'm serving time for 1 count of voluntary manslaughter.
If your microwave popcorn starts to pop before you turn the microwave on, it's probably not safe.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
Probably.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Don't worry until you have had a radiation team doing measurements in your apartment and found out that the levels are near what's considered unhealthy.
But be prepared to find out that your apartment is considered unfit for living.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Easy one. Just start wearing a tin foil hat. I'm sure some kind soul here would be more than willing to help you out!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Duh. The point of the article was not celltower radiation, but to let everyone know that he has a penthouse in Manhattan.
Tomorrow I'm going to ask what sort of MP3 player to get for my Ferrari.
Look on the bright side: if he really does die from the microwave radiation, he won't have to worry about resale value.
..and you'll be fine.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Darn it, all I can find is aluminum foil!
Curse you government! I see what you're doing!
Amateur radio operators have been using devices that can put out 5 to 1500 watts since the 1930s (possibly earlier)
Yeah, and look at what all that radiation has done to them. It's turned them into hams.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
If he's buying it he won't have a landlord and he won't be a tenant, moron.
Your first hint should be that the apartment is for sale because everyone in it died of leukemia...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No! That's the worst thing you can do! Have you ever seen what happens to a ball of tin foil when you put it in the microwave?!
What you need are magnets! It's like how a motor works, but in reverse.
No, not like a dynamo. More like the deflector dish on the Enterprise.
Just don't cross the streams. Never cross the streams.
Unless wearing waders.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Yes, don't worry, I was born under such antennas and was left without consequenceesesesesesesesewseseseses
Gentlemen, can't we compromise? The signal power will reduce by the 2.5 power of the distance. Getting along isn't so difficult, after all!
Alu-min-i-um, you insensitive colonial.
No worries: if it was unsafe, I am sure that the cellular industry would tell you.
There is a product called Scotch-Tint that is a EMF reducer for windows.
Does it work on Linux?
Also, recall that the power density drops by the square of the distance from the antenna. So, if you measure the power at one micron away from the antenna, it will be twice the strength you'd get if you measure it two microns away. Extend this out, and at 3 microns, you're down to 1/8th the power, 4 microns = 1/16th. At 20 feet, you should be all the way down to 1 / 3,716,121,600,000th the original power, or about one three-trillionth the original power. Right? So nothing to worry about.
Darn it, all I can find is aluminum foil!
Curse you government! I see what you're doing!
You won't be able to find it in the United States (hmm, I wonder why...), but I hear aluminium foil is a perfectly adequate substitute for tin.
Yes, I know what hams are. Hams regularly interfere with police and fire operations trying to help when it is not needed. Hams use obsolete analog communication on huge swaths of valuable spectrum under the excuse of helping emergency communications when really they oppose it as much as they are able. Hams claim to create technological innovation when in actuality none of them has developed anything useful in several decades. Most hams nowadays purchase their equipment from outlets like any other consumer. Hams are an outmoded obsolete throwback from an earlier era, like eugenics or racism. Ham radio should be abolished and the spectrum put to profit-making use for the public good, instead of the good of a select few. But hams have a powerful political lobby in this country and overseas to protect their interests. Hams have so much money have their own personal satellites in orbit. I hate every last one of you and will strive to the utmost to see your hobby destroyed by any means necessary.
Amateur radio operators have been using devices that can put out 5 to 1500 watts since the 1930s (possibly earlier)
Yes, but this is known to cause madness. Check out the evidence:
http://www.w8mrc.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ham_car_inside.jpg
The first clue that something's up is that it's available. Previous tenants doubtlessly died. Or went crazy . . . and died in a hail of gunfire. Or were taken over by the government and sent to do a mission . . . and died at the hands of Iranian intelligence.
The hows and the whats are meaningless . . . if you get that place, you are going to die.
In conclusion, you are exposed to radiation every day -- don't be a pussy.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
But if he does, they are more likely to be mutants. (99% chance of them being bad mutations, but that .1% chance that he will be the father of the new master race....)
And here people have prejudice against mobile home dwellers. Imagine all that aluminum protecting them day and night!
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Create a parabolic dish, so that you can nail some poor schmuck in jersey with roaming charges. (so poor that his cell phone charges for roaming)..
enjoy
Storm