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

[will kemp]

i can only guess you must be really young. mobiles *haven't* been around for decades - not in any significant numbers. mass mobile use is less than a decade old. even ten years ago, mobile use was fairly rare - mainly restricted to drug dealers! ;-) and before that there was only an insignificant proportion of the population using them. twenty years ago they didn't exist.

*if* mobile phone use does turn out to have been the cause of health problems, it's unlikely to show up in any statistically significant way for at least the next ten and probably the next twenty years.

will

[will kemp]

but perhaps not quite such a good grasp of reality!

and not a very good understanding of history.

will

[will kemp]

in australia, sparkies use the term "aerials" to refer to the cables that connect electricity lines from a power pole to the bracket up near the roof of a house.

will

[will kemp]

i did the first 7 months of an electronic technician apprenticeship with marconi radar in 1975 (i never was much use at sticking to things!) i don't think there's much left of them any more, though, is there/

will

[hairydog]

Well, I'm under pension age. Sorry, but mobiles have been around for decades. OK only in large numbers (many millions) for two decades, but in smaller numbers for far longer than that.

Portable radio transmitters of similar or higher power have been in use for over 50 years, particularly by the military.

Despite all this experience, there have been no (not "just a few: none) authenticated instances of any harm done to anyone.

This is very unlike motor cars, electric blankets, cigarettes, hamburgers, asprin, and many many more other products which are known to be very damaging, but you seem not to be campaigning against.

Why the irrational concentration on something that has no known effect, has no suspected reason to have effect, and has no history of harm?

[hairydog]

It occurs to me that around ten years ago I was a probation officer, working in an inner city area, and I had quite a few drug dealers on my books.

Some of them did have mobile phones, some of them stolen and cloned. One or two built mobile phone businesses on that beginning! But even among my probation clients, there were more mobile users who were not drug dealers than who were.

I think that you have been taken in by uninformed speculation on this aspect of mobile phones as much as the "health risk" aspect.

[John Rumm]

The big bit in Chelmsford is called Alenia Marconi Systems these days IIRC, with a focus on the defense related suff. Some of the other civil radar related stuff got farmed out to other bits though.

[will kemp]

i'm not campaigning against mobiles. i use them myself and i've got no problem with them - although i don't like the way my head heats up and i feel like a clamp is tightening across my temples after i've been talking on one for a long time! but i try and avoid doing that!

i've worked around very high powered transmitters and i don't think mobiles are massively significant in terms of the general level of rf radiation all of us live with constantly.

however, while there has, of course, been two way radio use for many decades (i drove taxis and worked on ships long before i had a mobile!), there's never been such a massively widespread use of transmitters at the particular frequencies mobiles use and with the antenna so close to your head.

quite likely there will be no effects at all on anyone, but it seems possible that, given the vast numbers of people involved, a small minority could experience some adverse effects. maybe, maybe not.

i started using mobiles in my forties, so if there are any effects i'm less likely to experience them before i die (from something else, hopefully! ;-) ) than people who started using them when they were 9!

will

[hairydog]

You get the same from a landline phone. The heat is coming from your head, and can't escape because there's a phone in the way. A typical human head dissipates around 25w to 30w - and the total output of a GSM mobile is well under half a watt. Go figure.

Riiight...

The old Band IV TV and current UHF TV are only an octave or so away from it, and they were around for a long, long time, and at high powers.

That's true, but we are discussing base stations in this thread, and they're not close to your head. However, ignoring that, there is no postulated effect possible at the sort of RF levels mobiles put out. What, exactly, is your concern?

Seems so.

Well, it is possible. Increasingly unlikely as time goes by, and nothing is reported.

OTOH, cigarettes kill half their users.

Ah, but mobiles are a huge health benefit to that age group, and a bit older. They spend their money on top-ups, so they can't afford cigarettes.

[John Rumm]

Interesting to hear that someone else has noticed this....

If I make a longish call on a mobile then I also get a similar sensation on the side I am holding the phone, usually above and behind the ear. Usually not a problem unless I am bordering on a headache where it is usually enough to promote it from bordering to "here". I never feel any similar sensation with a conventional wired phone. I also never felt it with my original Nokia 101 ETACS analogue phone. The Ericsson GF788 (GSM

900) that I had after that caused a quite noticeable sensation (short helical stub antenna). I have had a R600 and now a T68i (internal antennas) after that, which still cause some sensation but not as much as the GF788. These later phones have both been on PCN1800 though. I am not sure if it just a case of me becoming less sensitive to the effect (I am a very low volume user - say typically 30 mins/month tops) or a result in the change in phone technology.

To be a fair comparison you would also have to take into account the modulation scheme used, and the quality of the post transmitter filtering amoung other things. GSM phones typically stick out less RF power than the ETACS ones they replaced, and yet cause far more interference in susceptible circuits due to the 13kbs data rate they use getting demodulated right in the middle of the audio frequency spectrum. Digital data traffic will also tend to generate far more broadband noise if not pre shaped and well filtered, simply due to the quantity of "edges" in the waveform. It would hence seem unwise to assume that frequency and power alone are the only factors worth of consideration when looking for adverse biological effects.

[David Marshall]

That's exactly right. And it doesn't even have to be a phone - your hand does the same. ;)

Dave

[Matthew Haigh]

In article , John Rumm writes

What you hear is actually the effect of the transmitter being turned on and off 207 times a second (time division multiplexing, putting 8 mobiles onto a single frequency by allowing them to each transmit for a short burst in turn), not the data it is carrying.

Matt

[Peter]

Isn't it only the TETRA base station that pulses, not the handset? - I may be wrong of course.

[Andy Wade]

Other way round - the mobile only transmits in its own time slot whereas the base transmits in all time slots.

[Peter]

I was reasonably confident of being wrong - thanks for the correction.

[Capitol]

This mast siting problem arose for a friend recently (they lost!). They could not find any answers relating to to the effect of base station transmitters on heart pacemakers. Any ideas anyone?

Regards Capitol

[Brian Morrison]

Pacemakers are usually affected by magnetic fields at short range (because such near fields decay an order of magnitude more rapidly than far field EM waves). I don't recall seeing any information on radio transmitters and pacemakers as the risk is small provided that the pacemaker has RFI and EMC immunity. Anything modern would have, I don't know what the battery life is like on a pacemaker but I bet it isn't so long that people are still wearing old kit.

[David Marshall]

I'm aware of two studies into the effects (apart from the tests performed by the manufacturers themselves, and the interference tests needed for approval of any medical device). They both found no effect on any modern pacemaker from any radio interference, mobile mast or otherwise.

Dave

[Bill]

In message , Brian Morrison writes

My next-door neighbour is having one fitted on Monday I'll do a few tests with her if you like.

[John Rumm]

If you visit Marconi at their original Chelmsford site, they have (or had) one building where they test and integrate their high power HF transmitters (from 1kW to > 1MW). There are warnings on all the doors that forbid you to enter if you have a pacemaker. Could be just an arse covering exercise (especially since there are no warnings not to walk alongside the building where there is only a pane of glass between you an some of the kit). Although having worked in the building (implementing new control software for a 10kW HF amp), I might think twice if I knew that my life depended on a small bit of electronics to carry on working !

(In places like this there risks not just limited to those from the conventional non-ionising RF, but also the X-Ray emmisions from the units themselves, and the magnetic influences of some of the very high current supplies and moster step up transformers)