radiation with all the wireless links

[Argus]

Hi

i was just speaking to some colleagues about the whole radiation from cellphone towers saga
and i was wondering if the wi-fi/wisp and all the microwave links used by companies for back haul cause any amount of radiation that is dangerous

is it in the same ballpark where some people believe it is dangerous and others don't care

for example if you get one the wireless links like wimax or a microwave connection
is it dangerous to your health living within that field of radiation for extended periods of time

any comments on this?

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

/Gets popcorn to wait for the tinfoil brigade to post

 

[kooldude]

/popcorn finished. where is the tinfoil brigade.

 

[Tacet]

@OP - honest question or are you tinfoil brigade trying to stir something? I'm not in the mood to waste time replying to someone who's hunting a debate.

 

[Herm]

i have a 5ghz connection at home and was standing in front of the grid the other day, i wonder if i'll grow another arm.....

 

[Argus]

@Tacet
it is an honest question
but if your not in the mood why did you bother posting
and plus thats the whole point of the forums is to discuss things like this and have debates

i myself live near a cellphone tower and my previous house (which i lived in for 11 odd years) had power lines running not too far from it
so i think i'm screwed no matter which way i look at it

 

[TJ99]

Nah, I think it's overrated. My wi-fi router is right next to my bed and I've never head any problems, except that one time I had a small pain in my third kidney, and one of my claws was a bit sore but it's sorted now.

Seriously though, I don't think there's anything to worry about, the amount of radio waves from all kinds of different sources in the air everywhere is crazy, and you don't even know about it, it doesn't affect us so stop worrying. You'd be surprised at how congested the airwaves are already.

 

[xumwun]

Its all non ionizing, the worst it can do is cause burns and even then only with an extremely high dose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation

 

[Elimentals]

All radiation is bad for you, the question is just, is it mensurable damage and in what time-span, be it ionized or non-ionized? The one damages your DNA the other just just kills your cell or shorten their lifespans. Your cells constantly renew themselves and that where the DNA damage is seen as the worse one of the 2 as the damage gets carried over.

If you compare it to all the radiation you get when you simply just walk to your car I would say WiFi and cell radiation is so small it doesn't even count. I would be more worried about that star that exploded 5 million light years away than the cell tower on the street corner, never mind that big star just 8 minutes from us.

 

[icyrus]

is it dangerous to your health living within that field of radiation for extended periods of time

any comments on this?

In short, no it is not dangerous.

 

[Tacet]

@Tacet
it is an honest question
but if your not in the mood why did you bother posting
and plus thats the whole point of the forums is to discuss things like this and have debates

I'm happy to give information, but I'm not willing to go into a debate which normally ends up in the conspiracy theory domain.

Let's take a Wifi link running on 2.4 GHz. The free-space loss of the radio wave is defined as:

FSL = (4*pi*d*f/c)^2

where FSL is free space loss, d is the distance from the transmitter (in m), f is the frequency (in Hz) and c the speed of light (~3x10E8). For a 2.4 GHz radio wave, that computes to 10 000, meaning that only 1/10000th of your transmitted power reaches a point 1 m away from the antenna. In the radio world we tend to think in dB, where every 3 dB is half the signal strength. The 10 000 times case is the same as a 40 dB loss. To get from normal notation to dB notation you use the following:

FSP(dB) = 10log_10(FSL)

Transmitted power is normally given in dBm, where 1mW is 0dBm. The legal transmit level for Wifi is 100 mW, or 20 dBm. This means that at a distance of 1 m away from your antenna, the signal strength is -20 dBm, which is 10 uW.

At a distance of 2 m, the FSL is 46 dB, meaning that the signal strength is then only 2.5 uW. Personally, 2.5 uW doesn't really bother me. Radio and TV broadcasters typically transmit in the kW range. So does radar systems. You also have a few transmitters in your house which few people think of: switching mode power supplies and fluorescent lamps (an electronic student's bane in the lab!).

I know I'm not proving anything - just trying to show you how little energy actually comes to you because of microwave comms, compared to other sources. As TH99 mentioned, the airwaves are already very congested. If you do a spectrum scan in just about any place in i.e. PTA, you'll find spikes just about all over the spectrum.

On an even lighter note: though I'm single without children, I work with people who've been working in the microwave industry for a long time. They all have normal kids, and seem to be in good health. And believe me, we're subjected to much worse radiation than other people. We've done interference tests on militarty aircraft radars (which are very strong transmitters), I've walked into labs where contractors forgot to switch off the radio before taking the waveguide off, I've worked on trunk radios forgetting that the Tx power filters actually carry the amplified radio signal (I was a totaly newb then).

Got to run, so I'll leave the post here.

 

[protzkrog]

it's more dangerous to be out in the sun all day

 

[Elimentals]

it's more dangerous to be out in the sun all day

Its more dangerous walking to your car at night because of the radiation coming from the universe than staying for a year next to a tower.

 

[jamster]

This thread made my head hurt

 

[HavocXphere]

Its too early to tell. These kind of things you can't reliably know without many years passing.

There is no real indication of danger right now & it provides a very tangible benefit, so I'm all for it.

 

[bekdik]

All radiation is bad for you, the question is just, is it mensurable damage and in what time-span, be it ionized or non-ionized?

You mean it only afects females?

 

[SteveO]

if you stand directly in LOS of a long haul microwave you will die.We've had guys fall off towers and after having inadvertantly moved infront of the microwave dish. The power from those things basically fry you.

 

[bobby23]

Ask that question here and all you will get are the trolls with remarks that if it is harmful they would have an extra arm or a leg by now. Would all those bogus skeptics please go stand on the ground of the Chernobyl explosion? I can guarantee you won't grow an arm or a leg either but the mainstream view would not advise such a thing and even today the cancer and mutation rate is higher in the area.

Just because there is no immediate effect does not mean there is no effect in the long term. Even if they were to notice an effect it would be put down on other causes. The view of the medical community atm is that there is no immediate crisis but that "caution is advised" in light of recent studies and analysis suggesting a causal link.

 

[Tacet]

if you stand directly in LOS of a long haul microwave you will die.We've had guys fall off towers and after having inadvertantly moved infront of the microwave dish. The power from those things basically fry you.

Interesting. I've stupidly radiated myself before with the total power output of a long haul microwave and I'm still alive. It did feel very stupid to realize that the flange you're looking into is transmitting. And yes, I basically jumped down to the power switch.

Ask that question here and all you will get are the trolls with remarks that if it is harmful they would have an extra arm or a leg by now. Would all those bogus skeptics please go stand on the ground of the Chernobyl explosion? I can guarantee you won't grow an arm or a leg either but the mainstream view would not advise such a thing and even today the cancer and mutation rate is higher in the area.

Just because there is no immediate effect does not mean there is no effect in the long term. Even if they were to notice an effect it would be put down on other causes. The view of the medical community atm is that there is no immediate crisis but that "caution is advised" in light of recent studies and analysis suggesting a causal link.

Any links to a study suggesting a causal link? I agree that caution is a good idea, and I agree that there is no conclusive evidence either way. Fortunately we are covered by safety standards that limits the power output of tranmitters.

As for Chernobyl, that is not a good comparisson. Nuclear radiation is ionizing, which is much different from non-ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation has been shown to be dangerous beyond any doubt. The only known way that EM waves interact with the human body, is by induced currents in your body - i.e. your body acts as the secondary winding in a very strange transformer. The induced currents, however, is smaller than those naturally present in your body.

As for extra arms and legs: I don't have stats on it, but it does seem as though the number of people getting cancer is increasing. There are numerous possible causes for it, though, and I don't think anyone really know why. Is it because of microwave radiation, or because of the plastics our food is often in? Is it caused by foamalite cups used for coffee at childrens' parties, or does the baby milk powder contain something sinister? Will free-range chickens save us? We live in a society where there are numerous possible culprits that have not been researched adequately, and we cannot really blame one of them for harm without proper research and proofs.

 

[MR.C]

Twice I got sick with flu, once when my wifi modem was blown by lightning and another time with another wifi problem. Guessed it was just co-incidence but would be nice to know the outcome of proper research.