Mobile Moans (Mobile phone safety)

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Product:	Mobile phone safety
Date:	18/11/00 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very Useful

Disadvantages: Usefulness being abused

In the wake of government denials that so and so is not harmful when later on it turns out that it was, I can no longer trust the government to tell the general public the truth or indeed believe what they say. For every expert that says, "yes this is safe" there is another expert with an opposing view.

However in the case of mobile phones I am fortunate in that I know something about radio waves and what they can do.

As far back as 1954 when I was undergoing training as a radio engineer in the Royal Navy we were told to keep away from all forms of radio wave radiation as we could experience adverse effects. On one occasion I found to my cost what those effects were. To steady myself whilst up a step ladder while changing a transmitter aerial tuning unit coil I grabbed a nearby transmission line. It wasn't live as such but even though I had an earthing rod attached to the line, adjacent live transmission lines from a 40 kilowatt transmitter were still inducing a radio frequency electric current into it. I burned my hand but there was nothing to see. That is because it was the flesh under the skin that had burned first and had I been daft enough to hold on for a few more seconds the skin too would have been burned. The point I'm making is that radio waves burn from the inside out in the same way that a microwave oven cooks food.

The microwaves emitting from a mobile phone are of very low power, probably measured in milliwatts but they are still microwaves which have the capacity to penetrate skin and bone without damaging it but will damage soft tissue, the brain, behind the bone. Being very low power the damage can only be very slight. BUT! Continual usage can start to have some damaging effect, in the same way that a microwave oven will burn food if set to run too long even on the lowest power setting.

There can also by the cumulative effect of frequent use.

It seems to me that the manufacturers of mobi
le phones need to have a re-think about their design. There is no practical or theoretical reason why the aerial has to be at the top of the phone as transmission is not affected by whether the aerial is upright or pointing downwards. So instead of the aerial being at the top and close to the head, if it was at the bottom it would be further away from the head or at least the brain. And as radio waves' power is inversely proportional to the distance from the source, the few milliwatts of power radiating from the aerial would be measured in microwatts near the brain. The damage would be one thousandfold less. In any case we probably get more radiation from the sun.

As for the mobile phone masts, the problem there is not so much with the phone companies but with the law. We need a law which requires planning permission for the erection of any mast, anywhere, regardless of height. Then taking into account the inverse radiated power law, no mast should be erected below 20 meters from the ground or building where the general public would have adjacent access to. No responsible Council would give permission for a mast to be erected in a sensitive area like a school with such a law in place. Even an irresponsible Council would prefer to stay in office than risk the wrath of the electorate at the next local election.

To my mind a mobile phone is or rather can be extremely useful for those who need constant communication with their place of work or for emergencies. But far too many people abuse their use purely and simply because they have them and they want to let the world know that they are with it. But having been invented you cannot un-invent it and for good or bad they are here to stay in one form or another. Maybe in a few years time when everybody has got a mobile the novelty will wear off and people will regard them in the same way that they regard their land line phone at home.

If indeed the mobile phone addles the brain after years o
f use then the morons who use them without just cause deserve what they get. Unfortunately it is the rest of us who will pick up the bill as they are treated for early dementia.

I would add that I do not have a mobile phone because I'm never far away from my land line phone at home and on the few occasions that I go shopping or something a mobile phone would be of little use to me lying unconscious somewhere.

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