Objection to mast - best way to object a Vodafone contractor proposing to erect a mast

[Ivor Jones]

[snip]

I'd say it proves exactly that.

Ivor

[Dave Fawthrop]

| On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 13:54:59 +0100, [e-mail] | wrote: | | >Not necessarily, if you were asked to guarantee that a link will never | >ever be found between mobile masts and health problems, would you? (with | >your conservative, possibly £squllinons of legal actions hat on) | | If there is enough money in it, anything can be "proved", let alone | "found".

Proving a negative is always impossible. So anyone asking for proof that masts do not cause health problems is asking the impossible.

[Edd Edmondson]

Yeah, I lost a factor of two there, but seeing the errors elsewhere lets forget that.

No, I'm not convinced it would be concentrated in a small area. It's an assumption I've got no justification for. 1-2cm^2 is almost certainly too small. Also, no, I'm not ok with that because there's no reason to think exposing a couple of cubic centimetres of mostly skin, skull and ear is equivalent to exposing the whole side of your head (and the rest of your body) so the comparison is still flawed. (Well, I'll allow that the exposure has exactly the same effect in that it could have no discernable effect at all).

We basically only differ by two orders of magnitude anyway (not a lot when you're estimation of the area of tissue absorbing microwaves is probably out by at least one order of magnitude and there's random factors of a few floating around elsewhere too), and the essential point of my post was to point out a) that mobile phones aren't going to make heads explode and b) the inverse square law doesn't apply exactly, because that's for spherically symmetric emissions and for exposures of arbitrarily small areas, and you're going to have to be more careful.

[will kemp]

motion of riding on the anchor, maybe. being boarded by police, etc - they never really needed to worry about that. living on board a ship..., well, i've done it and it never made me particularly tired.

boredom, though... that's another matter!

will

[will kemp]

calm down! i don't have to study a control group to know that getting worked up over newsgroup crap and having your blood pressure go through the roof isn't good for you!

[will kemp]

too right mate! the difference with those is they don't have fans blowing all the fumes out. apart from your car, that is - and anyone who drives around in a new car with the windows closed is nuts!

[John Rumm]

Not at all.... and don't shout.

Firstly not all masts are disguised to look like lamp posts etc. Many are yes, however if a traditional pylon style mast was being erected close to a property could you not see its owner getting miffed about the look of the thing?

Secondly (and more importantly), even if they erect a nice "invisible" mast right next to your house, it may not look offensive, however it will still lower your property value (or at least make it harder to sell) should potential purchasers/local residents become aware of its presence. The fact that to *you* the mast poses no threat, will not help dispel their fears however ill informed or misplaced they may be.

As to the argument "they won't know it's there", what happens when questions regarding such matters are asked by the purchasers solicitor during the conveyancing of your property, or you need to disclose the fact it's there in your sellers pack? If you know, and fail to disclose it, then the buyer will have redress against you.

[will kemp]

finally, some evidence (that even the govt cant ignore) that reducing

yeah. the most worrying thing about this stuff in this country is the fact that british people generally hate fresh air. personally, i'd rather freeze than suffocate, but most people seem to actually enjoy suffocating. aircon doesn't shift these chemicals at all hardly.

will

[will kemp]

yeah, yeah, yeah. currently, i'm in a small flat in england with lots of that sort of shit. but when i first started noticing the effects of this i was living in a timber house in the rain forest in australia, with no carpets, lino, etc, and the windows were never closed. previous to that, i'd been living in a timber house in brisbane, with no carpets or much other synthetic crap, on a large block with lots of trees around and the windows were never closed - but i had a computer in my bedroom for 2 years and i'd been working part-time in a tiny little box of an office with bad ventilation and an oldish computer in it.

of course it's not proven. it's never likely to be "proven" - if for no other reason than the ill-effects of this stuff are barely beginning to be recognised.

however, when the symptons start within 10 or 15 minutes of sitting down in front of a computer, and at no other time, it's a reasonable bet that it's something to do with the computer! (the symptoms include dizziness, respiratory effects, and oedema).

well, i do work 20 hours a week mainly in an office with a computer on my desk and a dozen or so other computers on desks. but my other job is cutting grass in a caravan park. and i get out as much as i possibly can apart from that. and, i must say, i'm not currently having a lot of trouble with it.

any idea what caused it?

that's probably a sensible suggestion. but i prefer to deal with my health problems myself. so far, i seem to have been reasonably successful. only time will tell how long *that* lasts though! ;-)

will

[tony sayer]

I don't think that the issue is "making heads explode" as such, if it were it'd be happening right now!. The real issue is what long term low level exposure "might" result in. Its only in quite recent times that base stations using frequencies on what's considered the microwave bands and the latest offering UMTS is around 2.1 Ghz, have been located closer than before to human populations.

Now I think that the real problem is the location of the base stations isn't happening on "engineering/health/safety" grounds its more where they, the network operators, can site them and they will seek out the cheapest locations as ongoing site rentals are quite a consideration in these decisions.

This is a questionable practice. For instance there are Two Orange stations near where I live, one is located in the high street the other on a main road and some 14 metres from the nearest house. What's more is that the aerial height is level with the bedrooms on the nearby houses.

Now they "could" have located that one around a couple of hundred metres away, but the farmer there wanted more for his land than what the council let them put it there( the current location) for!. It seems that the planning criteria need looking at more closely so that some "engineering" input is required into these decisions, and that doesn't need to come from the network operators who will be looking for the cheapest and quickest answer to BTS deployment.

Now you might say as has often been said "I or I know someone who has been working with RF for umpty one years etc, and they haven't come to any harm etc, but it hasn't been until recent times that this closer contact to RF exposure at these frequencies, or any frequencies that may be considered RF has happened.

Now we don't as yet know of any mechanism of how this may affect human tissue over time. Simple dielectric heating may not be a problem there may be other effects that we do not know of as yet. So what is wrong with a more cautionary approach being taken with location of BTS equipment. Now if I had a base stations some hundreds of metres away with the aerials relatively high above ground level I wouldn't find a problem with that at all, even if its not the most ascetically pleasing structure around!, but one a few tens of metres away with much lower aerials so that the upper rooms of my house are more or less at right angles to the radiated field, I'm not that happy about.

Now I would prefer this location decision decided by others than the conflict state arising between the net operators and the planners, some input as to health/engineering considerations I think MUST be taken.

Now in all honesty, who on this group would be happy to have say a young growing child in "that" room referred to earlier, sleeping and growing in there year on year continuously exposed to low level RF?. I for one wouldn't, and I'm in the radio comms industry, and do support the use of mobile comms devices, and do use own and operate them!.

So, any takers?......

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 27 Oct 2004, wrote

But there'll be a whole bunch of canny lawyers -- many years from now -

- who will argue the point and possibly win.

This has zilch to do with the current state of knowledge -- it's to do with future risk management.

I'm pretty certain that of I was the legal advisor to the Church Commissioners, I'd advise "not worth the money".

[tony sayer]

In article , Harvey Van Sickle writes

Well there are some churches with broadcast and mobile comms aerials on them, and they are "very" keen on the money;!.

The Anglican cathedral in Liverpool is one.....

[Pete C]

Helps ward off frostbite though, which could be a problem in Austria... :)

Though what they use is polyethylene glycol, which tastes sweet but is non toxic.

It's also hygroscopic, next time you eat a nice moist cake from the supermarket have a look at the ingredients...

cheers, Pete.

[hairydog]

Mobiles have been around for decades. The only difference is that gradually power levels are falling, with the drive for smaller, lighter handsets and better battery life.

We're quite a way into this future, and despite hundreds of millions of bases, and billions of mobiles in daily use, there has never ever been one single proven case of a mobile phone doing anyone any harm at all.

[hairydog]

Easily far enough away for safety, but near enough to be visually intrusive.

[David McNeish]

My experience is that the mast operators are happy to indemnify landlords against any such claims. Which only leaves the risk of Orange etc going bust before the claims start coming in.

David

[G&M]

Not sure if your equation holds up here in the Peak District as there's little sun and few base stations because the Peak Park keep turning down planning applications for no good reason.

[David McNeish]

They don't need to bother asking - they can look up the locations of base stations here:

[tony sayer]

In article , [e-mail] writes

How do you know that for certain?, and how do I know it may not be?.

Think about what the Stewart report recommended....

Doesn't look too bad to my eyes;)

Take it you'd like on in your front yard then;))

[tony sayer]

In article , [e-mail] writes