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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."
Dont buy it. You will worry yourself sick whatever we say.
If exposure to mobile carrier antenna radio waves was of any danger to public health, there is no way you would be seeing these antennas anywhere near apartment complexes, the FCC or whatever is the appropriate authority is in your country would be all over this. On the contrary, you should be happy that your apartment is going to get some pretty damn good coverage :)
Tin foil suit.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
If you're that close, you should be able to put a small coil of wire in your apartment and induce a nice free electric current. It won't make you popular with the owners of the antenna but what do they know? Otherwise no, I don't see a problem with RF.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
...for your problem.
Right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1pv16G-liw
I wouldn't risk living there.
As far as I know (and I'm no expert, just good at googling) , the radiation levels from antennas are relatively safe about 3-5 meters away from them but depending on the type of antenna their beam can kind of focused in one direction so that 3-5 meters estimation could mean a measurement ouside the beam direction and if the apartment is inside the beam the radiation could be above safe levels. For example, I've heard that in my country, if you live on the last floor of a building and an antenna is above, the antenna must be on a pole at least 2-2.5 meters high so that distance between the apartments below and the emitter is around 3 meters.
Cellphone antennas would not be uni-directional so there shouldn't be any focused beam or whatever it's called but who knows what other antennas will be installed in the future on the same pole.
So from a radiation point of view you may be safe, but you never know how sensitive you are or how sensitive your family / children etc will be.
Second, while you may not care so much, the property will be harder to sell in the future because of that antenna.
1) Buy it. ...
2) Sue phone company
3)
4) profit!!!!!!!
At the bottom of the
The FCC enforces on a case-by-case basis. Unless someone has turned this situation (this SPECIFIC apartment being this close to a transmitting antenna) to the FCC, then chances are that they have no idea the situation even exists. As for my $0.02, you don't want to spend any more time than you have to being 20 feet from a transmitting antenna, LET ALONE living next to one.
There is a product called Scotch-Tint that is a EMF reducer for windows. Combine that with some metallic fabrics on the walls on that side. www.lessemf.com is one of many suppliers for those products. I've used a conductive plastic from those folks to make a shielded rack for some RF sensitive equipment.
The FCC may have something to say about that though. If he is close enough, his mesh may block enough of the signal to put the antenna out of use.
Even if you get some information from /. and you buy it, you will need to explain that it's safe to every visitor who notices these antennas.
The facts about urban wireless towers is that they're very low power because of the high population density. They use very small cells in urban towers to achieve a very small coverage radius so that they can put up more towers in the city and reuse the same spectrum. Furthermore, just being in-doors cuts the power level 10-fold and I'd really doubt that you're getting more than -40 dBm which is equivalent to 100 nanowatts of power even if you're outside the windows. My Wi-Fi Access Point is 5 feet from me and it's got a power level of -13 dBm which is about 1000 times stronger than a -40 dBm signal. Now if you think that's high, your cell phone probably has a signal strength of +10 dBm which means the power density is 100,000 times stronger than a -40 dBm signal. And if you think the phone is dangerous, check out this article from me http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/09/sar-ratings-are-not-a-measure-of-radiation/ and this article http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/01/cell-phone-exposure-prevents-or-reverses-alzheimer-in-mice/. So really, worrying about that cellular tower is just silly. If you're really worried about it, buy one of those $100 "Electrosmog" meters and measure the signal strength yourself at various places.
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.
In 2004 the Dutch laboratory TNO investigated the influence of UMTS and GSM radiation on two groups of people, one with health complaints they ascribed to GSM base stations and one without. The tests were double blind. For both groups a small, but statistically significant relationship was found between exposure to "UMTS-like" radiation and the sense of wellbeing reported by the subjects. This result was a disappointment to the Dutch government, that had commissioned this investigation. They had subsequent research done by a Swiss institution which did not confirm the findings. Anayway, the city of Hoofddorp, where I live, forbids the placement of cellular base station antennas on top of residential buildings. I support this policy; better safe than sorry.
Every time you do you are holding the antenna of that right next to your head. Yes it's lower power, but there's an inverse square distance law at work to, so the intensity is massively greater than that from the one 20 feet away. So either buy the apartment, or stop using cell phones. They are the only two logical choices.
Are there any laws against passive shielding inside your flat? After all, you could simply put standard metal office furniture inside your flat, and that would cause massive interference, too. I'd say, if the phone company doesn't want the signal to be blocked by whatever is inside a flat, it should put the tower somewhere where it won't be blocked by something inside a flat.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The signal power will reduce by the cube of distance from the masts
Square of the distance, actually.
The intensity of the radiation varies inversely with the square of the distance, not the cube of the distance.
I work with high power RF for a living. There are a lot of variables that contribute to non-ionizing radiation. Proximity, transmitter power, antenna radiation pattern, materials between you and the antenna, etc. There are ways to estimate the field intensity, but unless you know all the necessary factors, your calculations could be off by orders of magnitude. Having said that, the poster who commented that urban cells are lower power is generally correct, however, in a major metropolitan area, the cell can have many channels active at once, and the effect is cumulative. ANSI C95.2 is the safety standard covering this radiation. It's pretty technical, but the gist is the licensee (in this case the carrier) is responsible for making sure they don't cook the public.
The carrier must certify to the FCC that there are no publicly accessible areas that receive unsafe RF fields. The exact number varies by frequency, but generally there are two levels specified, one for publicly accessible areas and another for areas where personnel who have been trained in RF can work in levels above the public ones. These areas are normally calculated by the carrier prior to installation and they won't install if there's any chance they might exceed the safe levels.
As an example, I did an RF survey at one location where there was a multiple-transmitter FM antenna installed on top of a building that was across the street from another taller building. We had three FM broadcast transmitters operating on this antenna with about 250 kilowatts of radiated power, and the measured levels in the building across the street were not over the limits for public access. This was about 150 feet horizontally from the antenna. The solar coating on the building's glass stopped enough RF that it wasn't a problem.
If you want to measure it yourself, there are some inexpensive meters that are pretty accurate that will give you an indication of how much RF you're seeing. The one I have is this one: http://www.trifield.com/TrifieldMeter.htm It's about $150. I've seen these for sale at Fry's.
I have calibrated mine against a $5000 Narda commercial RF radiation meter and it's pretty close, certainly close enough for a "go/no-go" test which is what I use it for.
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
And then fail utterly to find a controlled study that shows repeatable results.
Lets make this clear, in over fifty years of trying nobody and I repeat nobody has yet managed to do a REPEATABLE study that shows harmful effects of low level non-ionizing radiation.
The key factor here is REPEATABLE. If it cannot be repeated it is just a meaningless statistical fluke.
Normally I wouldn't worry at all.
But the fact that,
1) It's only 20 feet away,
2) It's in the same plane as you, and,
3) It's pointed AT you...
That worries me some more. Obviously you want to talk to someone who really knows this stuff, and can also measure the EM radiation in your future apt.
I also assume its a 'killer' apt because its in a great location and its CHEAP. And of course, its CHEAP because everyone is scared of the antenna pointing right at it...
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Ok, there's alot of sentiment that EM radiation has no effect on DNA, etc etc. But I had read somewhere that people that live near power lines out in the country seem to develop extremely rare forms of cancer at a higher percentage than people living in the city. Of course, coincidence is not causation.
With that in mind, do I exclusively use a cell phone? Yes. I just don't know if I'd want to live next to a tower that might focus EM radiation right at my room while I sleep 8 hours a day.
If you can afford a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, you're making an awful lot of money for a computer engineer. Where can the rest of us get jobs like yours?
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
You are probably right, because it would need a conspiracy to hide research results. But... remember the tobacco companies' bought research.
A while ago, I learned a new expression which I've never seen in my native Swedish media -- which do say something about at least Sweden's political trustworthiness:
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Cell towers (panel antennas, as described in the summary) are not dipole antennas.
And if the results were unfavorable, what then?
Here's a recent article on the hazards of transient electromagnetic fields, such as those created by compact fluorescent light bulbs:
While I'm posting, here's a neat little website that plots FCC-registered antennas on a google map:
http://www.antennasearch.com/default.asp
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
"Killer Apartment Vs. Persistent Microwave Exposure"?
If the 'persistent microwave exposure' turns out a bad thing, the place may indeed be a 'killer apartment'... ;-)
Re re-saleability - even if you plan to stay there in the long term, you should still make your offer reflect the antennae... ...after all, your current vendor already faces a lower sellability on the place because of the antennae. Bid lower and leave it to the vendor to decide whether and how much more time to invest to try and line up another buyer...
Wait a minute, you can afford a penthouse apt in manhattan, but you are unsure about the safety of living next to a cellular antenna array that (to use your words) is pointed right at your apartment, so you turn to Slashdot? I don't believe it.
I also don't believe that any company would install a cellular antenna array and point it at a structure - it would seriously impact the coverage area of the antenna, and they could probably just as easily installed the antenna on a taller building and avoid interference...
Ken
While I can't comment on the radiation issues (a touchy subject with lots and lots of seemingly conflicting findings by not necessarily independent researchers), some of those towers do generate a very annoying sound.
A friend of mine lives in close proximity of one of those beasts, and the high pitched humming makes me uncomfortable. Wouldn't want to live there myself.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Telcos use microwave antennas to get carry phone lines over great distances for lower cost than fiber, but they would never point one at a building, as that would defeat the line-of-sight nature of their operation.
Ken
..and you'll be fine.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
Unless you are intercepting the entire beam of a directional antenna (only likely if this is an antenna communicating with another mast or base station, rather than the more likely scenario of one designed to talk to handsets) then inverse square is the correct formula, surely.
It's not the cube of the distance. It is governed by the inverse square law (I = I/d^2). The strength is essentially energy/(surface area of a cube) = Energy/(4*pi*r^2). This means that the strength will decrease by the square of the distance (and not the cube of the distance). This is provided the antenna is omni-directional, if it is directional, the signal will be even stronger.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The FCC may have something to say about that though. If he is close enough, his mesh may block enough of the signal to put the antenna out of use.
Any passive blocking that he puts on the walls or windows as an owner is something that he can't he held liable for(as opposed to active blocking or putting up a billboard or similar). I'd love to see the judge's face when the cell phone company tries to explain how their antenna requires his apartment to be non-shielded to operate properly(ie - we need to beam the signal *through* it because we put it in a bad location). They are supposed to be placed in such a manner that they are clear of buildings and physical obstructions. Hence the reason they are almost always on a small tower above a roof top. One thing, though - if you shield your place from these frequencies, you won't be able to use your cell phone at all while at home. You *can* turn your house into a giant Faraday cage. But expect it to act like one as well. You likely also won't be able to use your radio or HDTV over the air. Nothing comes in means nothing gets out as well. (OTOH, Wi-fi in home would be secure - heh)
Also, the refit won't be cheap. That Scotchtint runs about $1000 for a 60"x100ft roll. EMI resistant mesh for the walls generally runs the same. Generally you have to re-plaster or put another thin layer of drywall over top of it, which is factored into that price. And of course, it has to be installed properly. At that range(feet vs hundreds of feet) it will generate a significant amount of current.
Possible? Of course. But in today's world, being without tv, radio, wireless, and so on in such a place in NYC would be horrendous. In fact, trying to sell a place that you purposely turned into that would probably make it just as hard to resell as if you did nothing at all. I'd just keep looking. Maybe there's a similar place a block or two over?
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!
If there isn’t a window on that side where the panels are, just get some wallpaper that filters them. You know: Tinfoil hat style. (Well, usually some kind of wireframe suffices, if it’s e.g. 1/3 smaller than the waves.)
But if you want to know EXACTLY, you can always find out the energy (=frequency) of the radiation, and compare it against the bonding energy of e.g. proteins in your body (keyword Van-der-Waals bond) and others. But be aware that the quantum physics of this is often counterintuitive.
Then you don’t have to rely on biased tests or people telling you their bias, but know it yourself.
From what I remember, microwaves can only create 0.1-0.2 degrees Celsius of heating in the body. So less than (the infrared in) sunlight, but deeper penetrating.
Or in simple terms: If you fear microwaves, you should have more fear of sunlight, as it’s much stronger. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
It's a buyer's market for luxury property in Manhattan right now. Express your concerns to the sellers and hint that you'll need to have a survey team out to test for EMF exposure before you'd consider buying. Build an image in their minds of 3-4 guys in Tyvek jumpsuits walking around with meters on the roof and in the halls and knocking on your future neighbor's doors. (There's no reason for them to wear Tyvek jumpsuits, but you get the idea.) They'll likely offer to drop the price in exchange for you not doing that. More than enough to cover the cost of shielding and chemotherapy.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
And, on the other side, 50 years of trying and nobody can show it is safe, either - rates of cancer acquisition aren't exactly falling in the "modern world."
The basic physics say you're more than okay.
Very well. Expose yourself to direct sunlight 24/7 and let's see how long it takes for you to get skin cancer.
Just because "the basic physics" you mention in your claim point to there being less energy involved than sunlight, this does not eliminate the possibility of risk - especially when sunlight is a KNOWN carcinogen.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
The FCC enforces on a case-by-case basis. Unless someone has turned this situation (this SPECIFIC apartment being this close to a transmitting antenna) to the FCC, then chances are that they have no idea the situation even exists.
Most urabn cell phone towers have a 20W average power (100W in rural areas), since they want a large coverage area the gain will only be 3dB (parabolic dish 25 dB gain) at 6 meters with a 100W power source and 25dB of gain the power density is 6.7718 mW/cm2 using typical numbers 20W 3dB 6 meters the power density is 0.0086 mW/cm2 the "safe exposure level" for 2.4 GHz as defined by national association for amerature radio is 30 mW/cm2 for uncontrolled and 100 mW/cm2 for controlled. A cell phone with 3W 2.2dB of gain (diapole) at 1 inch would have a power density of 61.4108 mW/cm2.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
The FCC may have something to say about that though. If he is close enough, his mesh may block enough of the signal to put the antenna out of use.
Any passive blocking that he puts on the walls or windows as an owner is something that he can't he held liable for(as opposed to active blocking or putting up a billboard or similar). I'd love to see the judge's face when the cell phone company tries to explain how their antenna requires his apartment to be non-shielded to operate properly(ie - we need to beam the signal *through* it because we put it in a bad location).
Good point. Also if it does become useless and they relocate it you probably increased the resale value.
But in today's world, being without tv, radio, wireless, and so on in such a place in NYC would be horrendous.
maybe not if you have cable.
I am a PE and have done hundreds of RF emissions studies on wireless facilities, including rooftop installations like the one you describe. My initial thought is that twenty feet would be an unusually small distance between the antennas and your window. It may very well be much larger then that (50' or more is more likely - and would have much lower emission levels) but seems closer due to the perspective of the surrounding panoramic view. If it were truly only 20', and the building hosted antenna arrays from many wireless carriers (and FM transmitters), then there is a very slight possibility that the levels in your apartment could be near the public exposure limit. This situation is quite unlikely however. Most wireless carriers have an independent RF emissions study performed on rooftop installations that include measurements of the pre-existing antennas, so if you reached the right person and were persuasive enough you might be able to get them to share that with you (very unlikely). Another poster recommended a cheap meter. I'm not convinced of their accuracy, but you could give it a try if it worries you. Someone else mentioned low-E glass and correctly stated that it blocks a significant amount of RF energy. If you have low-e glass then even 20' away would mean your apartment is below the public exposure limit.
--- There are two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it
Chicken wire is too coarse for microwave.
People who build these things use much finer mesh; take a look.
It does not make sense that a cell phone tower's panel antenna would be blasting straight into an adjacent apartment as the article poster describes. This is counterproductive to achieving good coverage from that antenna.
The article poster says "roughly" on the same plane, how is "roughly" defined? Those panel antennas can have some pretty significant directionality in the vertical plane, such that even if "roughly" means "one or two stories difference", the antennas are probably shooting OVER this apartment and not INTO it. Especially since, as I said before, it makes no sense for these antennas to be shooting into it.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The FCC can't do shit he is not radiating, wire mesh is used for plaster, houses with plaster may not have slats they have a wire mesh also foil backed drywall (fireboard) could be used, all of these things are within code and he could not be forced to remove them.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
You are confused, total ham bandwidth is miniscule. The entity with the properties you describe is the U.S. military.
I trust you're never going to use wi-fi? :)
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.
I read somewhere that Barrack Obama is a Kenyan. Not very science-y, but I read it somewhere.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
You could read this book and be even more afraid (or maybe this author is just paranoid.)
> 20W 3dB 6 meters the power density is 0.0086 mW/cm2
I tend to agree - most likely there is very little radiation actually reaching the apartment. Just get a cheap RF meter and check how significant the background radiation is compared to a mobile phone. Chances are that it is negligible - and that would answer your question.
The man who discovered aluminum in 1808, a British chemist named Humphrey Davy, first named it "alumium." When he published in 1812 he had renamed it to "aluminum," which is the name still used in America. So where did that extra "i" come from? Wikipedia has the answer.
'An anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, in a review of Davy's book, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound."'
That's right. All of the haughtiness with which the British defend their extra syllable, all of the bloodshed spilled over the difference, and all of the mutual incomprehension that ensued is due to a change made against the discoverer's wishes based on the rant of an Anonymous Coward. If that isn't a successful troll I don't know what is.
Your brain is not a computer.
I was going to say... "scientists are still out on the long term effects of low level electromagnetic radiation exposure" Due to the anthropomorphic condition, the fact that we're here, and the sun constantly emits "low-level EM radiation" is nothing that hasn't been a selective pressure to tolerate since forever.
It's like those people who are running around with EM detectors, get into a brightly lit area and freak out going "OMG! THERE'S A HOTSPOT OF EM RADIATION HERE!!!!"
It's like... anime tear face... you can SEE part of the EM spectrum you twit.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Get the apartment, and then create a resonant chamber that creates interference for the transmitters/receivers. If the equipment can get interference from something you're doing in the apartment, then it is clear that the microwaves are penetrating the walls of the unit.
BTW, why did the previous owner leave the apartment? Died of brain cancer?
Best regards.
That's a sweat drop not a tear.