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.
If I'm not mistaken, there are provisions in NAFTA that prohibit such things. I believe the US government could challenge this as restraint of "free trade" under NAFTA.
I work for CC. I got the memo. This is totally out of context.
All our music is stored digitally on Novell (I know...) servers. The files are shared across our network by all the radio stations.
Because of the perverse file naming/numbering system we use, which has nothing to do with artist, title, or anything else that makes sense, it's hard to find stuff on these servers.
The memo was sent last Tuesday shortly after the attack in NYC. It was done so those program directors who wanted to remove the songs from rotation for the duration of the event would be able to find them in the database easily.
There was no directive that anyone remove the songs from the air. It was nothing more than a list for reference.
This is rediculous, but I'm sure they'll eventually get what they want. Are we going to continue to allow these corporations absolute power over non-infringing activities simply because someone, somewhere might break the law?
...and I thought you were innocent until proven guilty...silly me.
As someone who has worked in the broadcast radio business for most of my adult life, it remains to be seen if the satellite guys can bring anything new to the table.
Both XM and Sirius are heavily invested by big broadcast companies like CBS and Clear Channel (the one I work for...)
My concern is that these companies view this as simply more of the same instead of something new, much like they view their internet streaming.
What's needed is something totally customizable. Someone else said it: Customizable stream to each car--you pick the program.
Broadcasters still think in the "push" world. I firmly believe the future lies in the "pull" world.
I work for a group of radio stations. Our streaming audio provider wanted to do a "now playing" thingy on our station's web site, but the only way they could do it required that I attach our audio server computer directly to the internet. Needless to say, I declined.
I hope Sprint has at least figured out how to run it through a firewall...
Motorola, especially their two-way radio division, is notorious for this kind of crap. They've done stuff like this for years. They go after ham radio operators who buy their stuff on the surplus market, they go after anyone who even THINKS about using their software to program a radio without their oversight.
They have the most draconian dealer agreements in the world. I'm surprised any small dealer will sell their stuff.
It's really too bad they build such great radios, because their business practices suck.
C'mon guy, lighten up. I probably wouldn't ever have tried Linux if it weren't for redhat. There are a bunch of folks using it, not just "script kiddies".
I read an interesting article about Napster in "streaming" magazine, which is aimed at radio people. One of the quotes was "there are 30 million users of Napster--imagine if they all wrote their congressmen and said 'we want this'."
That was a good point. 30 million letters beats the RIAA every time.
What he's describing is the basis of a great idea, if you think outside the box. This is not about bringing radio to the internet--we've done that, and it SUCKS! No, this is about making broadcasting/netcasting work like XMMS/WinAmp, and more.
Work with me here...
Imagine something with a user interface like XMMS/WinAmp that works like a TiVo, where it watches what's out there and you pick-it/dump-it based on your own preferences. Start with some assumptions about your musical tastes, then expand on that based on your preferences and some educated guesses by the software.
Add to that the song database of Napster--everything from everyone's personal collection, in all types of music.
Next, add jocks who can deliver news, weather, sports, traffic, whatever--from anywhere you choose--and put into the stream automatically, as often as you want, only on-demand, or not at all.
Here's where we go outside the box: Make it work in your CAR or WALKMAN.
Would you pay $10/month for this? I certainly would.
The technology to do this exists. All someone needs to do is put the pieces together.
Actually, most radio stations use a variation of this system already. I'm Director of Engineering for a group of radio stations in Austin, Texas and we use such a system. I have two large server computers with big RAID arrays containing all our songs, commercials, promos, etc. Each station has a computer attached to the network with three commercial-grade audio cards that feed the audio console. The computer in the studio is a "control panel" that presents the jock with a user interface that "feels" like the old cart machine/cd player. It works very well. We do overnights completely automated, with the jocks voice inserted by the system automatically and you can't tell there's no one in the studio...
We can also use our corporate network to transfer the audio files to other stations in our company. This way we can rip the CD's in any location and send it to all the stations in the company. It saves lots of time.
Most radio groups work this way now. There are very few major market radio stations playing CD's anymore.
Not only does the IBOC system degrade the analog signal, it also does not provide CD quality, and USADR's own people admit it. I attended a seminar at the 1999 NAB convention where this was discussed. The USADR system provides 32kHz sample rate audio. This is no better than the existing analog system. Digital stations will be processed just as heavily as analog ones, so they'll still sound like a punching bag.
In addition, the analog system cannot be turned off because the digital stream takes SEVERAL SECONDS to lock when you change stations. So when you punch the button to the next station on your car radio, the radio has to switch back to analog mode (so you have to delay the analog signal to match...) until the decoder locks up. Eureka does not have this problem since everything comes out one data stream. IBOC is a piece of crap.
No one thought of how IBOC's five second delay affects how you run a radio station. How do you monitor off-air when the signal is delayed five seconds? How do you do a remote broadcast when you can't put the radio station on the PA system because it's five seconds delayed?
IBOC sucks, but it does one thing: It keeps the existing broadcasters in power.
Corporations win, listeners lose. God Bless America!
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What's it like working at iBiquity?
Darnnit! Didn't proofread closely enough. ANSI C95.1 is the correct standard. Thanks phobos512.
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.
It has happened here.
I'd have to go back to ham radio...it's what geeks did before computers.
Unfortunately, they came to America.
...and when you're done, read The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Kiein for the darker side of that story.
If I'm not mistaken, there are provisions in NAFTA that prohibit such things. I believe the US government could challenge this as restraint of "free trade" under NAFTA.
Now wouldn't that be interesting...
I work for CC. I got the memo. This is totally out of context.
All our music is stored digitally on Novell (I know...) servers. The files are shared across our network by all the radio stations.
Because of the perverse file naming/numbering system we use, which has nothing to do with artist, title, or anything else that makes sense, it's hard to find stuff on these servers.
The memo was sent last Tuesday shortly after the attack in NYC. It was done so those program directors who wanted to remove the songs from rotation for the duration of the event would be able to find them in the database easily.
There was no directive that anyone remove the songs from the air. It was nothing more than a list for reference.
This is rediculous, but I'm sure they'll eventually get what they want. Are we going to continue to allow these corporations absolute power over non-infringing activities simply because someone, somewhere might break the law?
...and I thought you were innocent until proven guilty...silly me.
Just let me know where I can buy one!
No it won't...it'll say:
"All wake up calls are busy...your call will be answered in the order received."
As someone who has worked in the broadcast radio business for most of my adult life, it remains to be seen if the satellite guys can bring anything new to the table.
Both XM and Sirius are heavily invested by big broadcast companies like CBS and Clear Channel (the one I work for...)
My concern is that these companies view this as simply more of the same instead of something new, much like they view their internet streaming.
What's needed is something totally customizable. Someone else said it: Customizable stream to each car--you pick the program.
Broadcasters still think in the "push" world. I firmly believe the future lies in the "pull" world.
I work for a group of radio stations. Our streaming audio provider wanted to do a "now playing" thingy on our station's web site, but the only way they could do it required that I attach our audio server computer directly to the internet. Needless to say, I declined.
I hope Sprint has at least figured out how to run it through a firewall...
You touched on one of my pet peeves...
Why do companies insist on advertising panes in install programs that advertise the product that YOU'RE ALREADY INSTALLING???
Marketing types never cease to amaze me...
I agree. That's what I did and I've been very happy with them. I have my own mail box in my own closet...$90/month. A bargain.
That's what I did, and I'll never go back.
Tomato, tomato, potato, potato...let's call the whole thing off!
Motorola, especially their two-way radio division, is notorious for this kind of crap. They've done stuff like this for years. They go after ham radio operators who buy their stuff on the surplus market, they go after anyone who even THINKS about using their software to program a radio without their oversight.
They have the most draconian dealer agreements in the world. I'm surprised any small dealer will sell their stuff.
It's really too bad they build such great radios, because their business practices suck.
C'mon guy, lighten up. I probably wouldn't ever have tried Linux if it weren't for redhat. There are a bunch of folks using it, not just "script kiddies".
I read an interesting article about Napster in "streaming" magazine, which is aimed at radio people. One of the quotes was "there are 30 million users of Napster--imagine if they all wrote their congressmen and said 'we want this'."
That was a good point. 30 million letters beats the RIAA every time.
What he's describing is the basis of a great idea, if you think outside the box. This is not about bringing radio to the internet--we've done that, and it SUCKS! No, this is about making broadcasting/netcasting work like XMMS/WinAmp, and more.
Work with me here...
Imagine something with a user interface like XMMS/WinAmp that works like a TiVo, where it watches what's out there and you pick-it/dump-it based on your own preferences. Start with some assumptions about your musical tastes, then expand on that based on your preferences and some educated guesses by the software.
Add to that the song database of Napster--everything from everyone's personal collection, in all types of music.
Next, add jocks who can deliver news, weather, sports, traffic, whatever--from anywhere you choose--and put into the stream automatically, as often as you want, only on-demand, or not at all.
Here's where we go outside the box: Make it work in your CAR or WALKMAN.
Would you pay $10/month for this? I certainly would.
The technology to do this exists. All someone needs to do is put the pieces together.
Actually, most radio stations use a variation of this system already. I'm Director of Engineering for a group of radio stations in Austin, Texas and we use such a system. I have two large server computers with big RAID arrays containing all our songs, commercials, promos, etc. Each station has a computer attached to the network with three commercial-grade audio cards that feed the audio console. The computer in the studio is a "control panel" that presents the jock with a user interface that "feels" like the old cart machine/cd player. It works very well. We do overnights completely automated, with the jocks voice inserted by the system automatically and you can't tell there's no one in the studio...
We can also use our corporate network to transfer the audio files to other stations in our company. This way we can rip the CD's in any location and send it to all the stations in the company. It saves lots of time.
Most radio groups work this way now. There are very few major market radio stations playing CD's anymore.
Not only does the IBOC system degrade the analog signal, it also does not provide CD quality, and USADR's own people admit it. I attended a seminar at the 1999 NAB convention where this was discussed. The USADR system provides 32kHz sample rate audio. This is no better than the existing analog system. Digital stations will be processed just as heavily as analog ones, so they'll still sound like a punching bag.
In addition, the analog system cannot be turned off because the digital stream takes SEVERAL SECONDS to lock when you change stations. So when you punch the button to the next station on your car radio, the radio has to switch back to analog mode (so you have to delay the analog signal to match...) until the decoder locks up. Eureka does not have this problem since everything comes out one data stream. IBOC is a piece of crap.
No one thought of how IBOC's five second delay affects how you run a radio station. How do you monitor off-air when the signal is delayed five seconds? How do you do a remote broadcast when you can't put the radio station on the PA system because it's five seconds delayed?
IBOC sucks, but it does one thing: It keeps the existing broadcasters in power.
Corporations win, listeners lose. God Bless America!
That's why answering machines have a "delete" key...