Slashdot Mirror
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."
A tinfoil hat should help....
>>>Every time you do you are holding the antenna of that right next to your head
Good point. A cellphone broadcasts at what? 1 watt? The tower is typically only a few microwatts (0.000001) by the time it crosses space and reaches your phone. Of course *this* tower is only a few feet away, but still it has degraded somewhat (milliwatts), so you're getting a LOT more power from the phone right next to your head.
This is why I typically keep my phone turned off.
Only turn it on when I need to call, or am expecting a call.
And don't put it next to my head while talking.
(Oh and no I would not live to any antenna.)
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