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Cell Phone Radiation Emission Tests Assume Use of Belt Clip
jfruh writes: Most Slashdotters rightfully roll their eyes when people panic about the "radiation" put out by cell phone. But there is a germ of truth to some of the nervous talk: when the FCC assesses how much radio-frequency radiation a phone user will absorb, they work on the assumption you'll be wearing it in a belt clip, rather than putting it in your pocket as most people do. With the size of some recent phones, I think assuming use of a backpack might be just as realistic.
That was an example of taking a good point and stretching it... Even the biggest 'smart' phones are pocket phones.
Pocket or clip we are talking about non-ionizing em radiation.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
My thigh muscles might be slightly warmed. How terrible.
While there's a European study suggesting that using a cell phone against your head increases your risk of brain cancer (by a factor of 2 I think), there's no known MECHANISM for this, since radio waves are not ionizing radiation.
How is that "a germ of truth to some of the nervous talk"?
My dad got his MSEE in the 1970s. He worked on designing the experimental apparatus for testing the effects of microwaves on mice.
This stuff has been well understood for a long time. The science is settled, morans.
Sure i do, and then hen i sit in the car the phone will go shooting out...
Have not tried using one since the 90's
Jeans and Khaki's that have the inside of the pocket lined with EMF blocking material. Just next to the skin, or it would block the phone from working.
Make a "pocket protector" version to use with any standard pair of pants.
it will never work... perfect for kickstarter.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I for one have the phone by my ear 99% of the time when its transmitter is running.
Granted, there is the other 1% when it's checking in with the tower or acknowledges a message, but I can't see it meaningfully influencing the result.
Why is radiation written in scare quotes as "radiation"?
I'm just not sure why we should care. There are no known non-thermal effects of microwaves, and the thermal energy of a cell phone just isn't enough to pay attention to-- three watts, when it's transmitting at full power.
http://physicsbuzz.physicscent...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If they assumed a belt clip they most likely also assumed pleated polyester khaki pants.
That's it. And they have 50x safety margin over the level of RF energy it would take to heat your body locally by 1 degree C. That extra 1cm that they allot for the belt clip is not going to make a big difference. Honestly, these days the processor on your phone is likely to heat your body a hell of a lot more than the RF emissions. This focus on the belt clips is a red herring. It's a pointless sideshow.
The important point is that the emissions tests required for FCC authorization do not even attempt to address cancer or any other malady for a simple reason: Because there is no solid scientific establishing the causation of any other ailment by non-ionizing radiation, which means there is no scientific evidence establishing what is a "safe" dose level. Therefore the government cannot create a rational safety limit for RF emissions based on anything other than the thermal heating effect (the only proven biological effect of RF energy on humans). Until the science changes, the FCC's RF emissions requirements will continue to be almost completely unrelated the issues that the RF activists are concerned with (cancer, RF hyper-sensitivity). But they still like to throw the belt clip issue out there just to spread FUD.
Seriously, this is utter nonsense.
Is SAR testing performed in body worn configuration using the belt clip? Sure it is. It is also done and various angles.
It is also tested against the head. It is also tested with a 1-5 mm separation distance. It is also tested with direct contact, and against the head, and extremities.
SAR is tested in a lot of configurations. Belt clips are just one of them.
Also, the author of the article clearly does not understand waveforms.
Putting a phone in your pocket does NOT mean that your exposure is higher than when using a belt clip having an 8mm separation distance. In fact, it is very often the case that the slight separation yields a higher power density than direct contact. This is of course due to the wavelength of that particular frequency.
My s3 gets warm and drains the battery while I'm at work probably because it boosts the radio in order to get any reception (gets 1x or 3g). Wonder what the radio output is in that case compared to when it operates normally under 4g
And by "gun" I mean gun.
Have gnu, will travel.
has the sheer volume of cancer risen in the United States in the last 20 years?
Also as people who are dying from other stuff decreases over time, cancer gets a crack at people who were otherwise knocked out by something else first.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
"Chemically ridden". So all food since the dawn of life then. Got it. I hate how the word chemical is used by Luddites as if chemicals are all toxic sludge.
No, there isn't.
Cell phone emissions (not radiation) do not become harmful with proximity. Period.
You don't all use these: http://www.amazon.com/Cell-Pho... ????
Silence is a state of mime.
Actually, there should not be any phones transmitting at 3 watts.
The highest in the US is GSM in the 850 MHz band. That is 2 watts, or 33 dBm.
Of course, nowadays most phones are using either UMTS or LTE.
So, in the same band, or any band for that matter will have a maximum output power of 24 dBm or 251 mW. Of course, by law you can transmit up to 7 Watts in some bands, but the networks do not allow for these high power class devices, so 24 dBm is the highest you will see as a consumer.
Suppose some way beyond the worst case scenarios were proven, and doctors could assert, "Give up using cell phones cold turkey or you'll suffer the same health risks as smoking cigarettes." How many people heavily dependent on using cell phones would give them up? How many would be able to pry them from the fingers of their teenagers? I am guessing not many. Going out on the street whether driving, walking, or biking is also incredibly dangerous, well except maybe for Sweden eventually. But we do it anyways.
I *HATE* that word; my 6+ is a large phone, not a tablet
It fits in my front or back pocket, WTF is wrong with these comparisons?
Here is the graph that should put this entire debate to rest. Even though the number of cell phones in use has skyrocketed since 1999 the incidence of brain cancer has not. If there was any causation one would expect an increase in brain cancer. That has not occurred. No correlation therefore no causation.
(please note that correlation can disprove causation but not prove causation)
First worry about heart disease and obesity. THEN, worry about smaller things that can kill you like cell phone radiation. (It really can harm you, I'm just saying, prioritize!)
WTF
I imagine there is a decent amount of time your phone is being held next to your head, right???? Why not test that!?
Seems like they are trying to avoid something here..
Can't anyone do simple arithmetic? Why not fear being illuminated by a flashlight? Ooooo, a death ray!
Non-ionizing radiation at a total radiated power order of watts. Why not worry about your microwave oven? Or turning on the lights when you come home in the evening. Or turning on the heat in your house? Or going outside on a sunny day? Or living in the mountains? Or living in a house with a concrete foundation? Or eating almost anything? Or getting hit by lightning? Or (fill in a huge, truly enormous list of things that are more plausible risk factors in human existence than cell phones even if you wear ten of them attached to a headband directly around your scalp).
Sigh. In fact, *SIGH*.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Actually, there should not be any phones transmitting at 3 watts.
Today, that is correct.
However, the first-generation analog cellular phones broadcast at a maximum of 3 watts. Only car-phones and bag-phones got that high, though.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Honestly, if I could *find* a decent belt-clip for my phone (currently a galaxy S4) I would be in heaven. However, most of what I find are things that look nice but are fumbly as hell, or easily broken. Cheap plastic clips that tend to snag and snap also abound.
So the phone's in my pocket, where it mingles with my keys, often gets snagged inconveniently when I've got an important call, and may slightly affecting my fertility (not necessarily due to radiation, but heat generation is also a factor).
If anyone can recommend a decent, durable case for Samsung phones I'd be happy. Hell, I might consider upgrading if it's for a decent phone other than the one I currently have (no iDevices though, please).
I think they have, but I, like everyone else I know, mostly just use text and internet. For example, no one is replying to this thread by holding a smartphone to their head. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/cellular-phones
Why would it be right next to your head for any amount of time?
No one really uses cell-phones as phones anymore, 96%+ of the time it is being used for web surfing in your hand, not up to the side of your head.
Pockets and purses can have coins while backpacks can have lots of metal items. It really doesn't matter, though, as the damage likely, if any, has already been done.
With the size of some recent phones, I think assuming use of a backpack might be just as realistic.
With the ever increasing ubiquity of internet addiction, I think assuming that some phones almost never leave the owners hand might also be realistic. (And yeah... I'll confess that I'm speaking for myself, to some degree.)
It's appalling to me to thing that the media and paranoid folks out there always focus on the mostly harmless electromagnetic radiation a mobile device puts out instead of the REAL danger! Seriously, there is a specific element used in most cell phone batteries that is literally weapons grade thermonuclear bomb fuel! Why don't people ever worry about that? Governments all over the world are probably stockpiling the stuff to use in their fusion bombs!
Fear the lithium, not the EMR. Keep in mind, every phone call you make puts nuclear fuel inches from your brain... isn't that a fun thought!
It's not ionizing according the World Health Organization. In the same vein, Wikipedia also lists it as non ionizing.
Exactly.
Nobody gave a shit about the health risks of smoking until we eradicated all the other diseases that took people out first.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
-1 Pedantic
The only way I know of today to get over about 1/4 watt today isn't with a cell phone, but a dedicated repeater(for cellular traffic). Dad's work just bought one for a truck. That can transmit at maximum power, but that's to an outside antenna.
You can also get higher powers with other bands.
My favorite is the woman using a portable phone handset because she didn't trust cellular radiation...
I don't read AC A human right
"You are wearing it wrong."
Table-ized A.I.
Not really. He just threw the blame on chemicals in food as an alternate theory. It wasn't pedantic to point it out as nonsense.
We know gamma rays will split atoms, thus causing problems quickly for living things immediately. You're dead in hours. X-Rays bump electrons off atoms, and cause problems for living things very quickly. Your dead in a week or two. Ultraviolet Rays bump electrons into higher energy orbitals (non-bonding or bonding) and cause problems for living things, but not as fast as X-rays. You get cancer and are dead in a few years. Visible light and microwaves can energize atoms into bonding(burning) and will cause problems for living things eventually. We get down to radio waves, and we don't see immediate effects, but it might take a long time for us to see. RF might take a human lifetime to cause bad things to happen to a human.
We (those of us who venture out of our parent's basement) are exposed to a great deal of visible/UV/infrared light already. It takes a human lifetime for for EM in that energy spectrum to kill us. Radio waves are lower energy, but it holds up to reason that eventually it will burn us somehow. I think the other radiation we are exposed to will get us first.
Can RF interfere with the motion of ions? I bet it does. Does that interference cause problems with the ion's natural function? Do sodium/potassium ions in neurons get pushed away from their normal channels so far as to cause a reduction in neural potentials? People who like radios say it won't. People who freak out about scary science say it does. What does a slight reduction in neural efficiency feel like? Getting sleepy a little sooner maybe. Remembering that name a few seconds or milliseconds slower? Nobody notices the effect compared to things that cause greater and faster changes. The few people who thing RF is making them ill might not be mistaken. They could have a body that isn't resistant to the effects. The rest of us are resistant so we call them liars or crazy.
Someone in 50 years will be able to provide a real statistical breakdown because it will take 80 years or more to see the difference. I doubt the problem will be what the RF sensitive people claim happen to them. It is possible that jiggling ions with RF could be beneficial for most of us. It could help push them down protein channels more efficiently or something.
I tried googling and failed. The original "portable" brick phone, the DynaTAC 8000X Was it 3W? 1.5W? Or less? For some reason I can't find the power rating.
Since before the days of the "motorola brick", I've used belt clips. As an amateur radio operator, I've carried walkie-talkies on my belt for years. I also volunteered as a 911-dispatcher for the sheriff's office and carried a VHF or UHF radio at times. Then when the "brick" came out, you pretty much had to carry it, if you wanted your hands free. Every cell phone I've used, I've used a belt clip. When I got my first smartphone (dell streak5) I carried it on my belt, same for the galaxy note1, and my current Huawei Mate2. It's just as natural for me, as it is for others to stuff them in their pants, or hold them in their hands. Since I use bluetooth for all my devices, I don't have to pull it out to see who is calling either.
Faraday cage undies!
Bag phones were semi-portable, hence the name. Per the article, some models had a maximum output of 3 watts.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You'll likely be happier if you abandon your change-counting and use the opportunity for anatomical study instead. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Everyone is freaking out over what the cell phone puts out, which is around 1/4 watt.
What they need to be worried about is the cell phone tower, which puts out quite a bit more power and over a wider frequency range all at once. As a result, your exposure is greater from the tower.
Let us not forget about all the other radio waves that we are exposed to, TV, broadcast radio, satellite, just to name a few...
but I'm curious about the brick phone, as you're holding the transmitter and antenna right up to your face, rather than in the bag, or on the car
http://www.newser.com/story/15...