For Once A Legitimate Complaint About Radio Tower Radiation…
June 16th, 2009
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There are plenty of people going around claiming to be sensitive to electromagnetic signals or that a cell phone, wifi or broadcast tower in their area is somehow destroying their health or will give their children cancer. In all cases, the complaints about radiation have been totally bogus, but now one has surfaced that may actually… gasp… have merit!
Radiation from a broadcasting tower off Soule Road makes it unsafe for at least one family to stay in parts of its home for more than 30 minutes per day, according to a preliminary report from a study conducted by Mid-State Communications.
After a funeral on April 16, Steve Lloyd of Floyd returned to his house at 8665 Soule Road and heard music from the God’s Country radio station playing from a TV – not a radio – in his bedroom.
“I told my wife, ‘It sounds like it’s coming from the TV, but it’s not on,’” Lloyd said.
Lloyd, 48, later noticed the WOKR FM radio station, which normally is broadcast on 93.5 FM, came in on many other frequencies in his house.
And in the following days, things got much worse.
Lloyd and his wife started getting headaches and diarrhea, felt nauseous and tired and got blisters on their skin, Lloyd said. Believing their health problems to be connected to the radio antenna recently added to the tower, the family moved in early June from its home to a camp about 25 minutes away on Kayuta Lake, Lloyd said.
At Lloyd’s request, Mid-State Communications studied the radiofrequency radiation levels at Lloyd’s house and neighboring properties. Company radiation detectors started going off as soon as workers stepped out of their vehicles there, according to the preliminary report.
In Lloyd’s home, exposure levels fluctuate above and below the FCC’s exposure limit, according to the letter. In high strength areas of the home, people should be limited to no more than 30 minutes of exposure per day, the report states.
Michael Long, Mid-State Communications radio division manager, stressed it was just a preliminary report but confirmed the company conducted it.
“He has a legitimate reason to want people to look into it,” Long said of Lloyd.
Mid-State Communications officials wouldn’t comment further and aren’t going to charge Lloyd for the work because they are concerned about conflicts of interest that could be caused by their ties to local municipalities, law-enforcement agencies and the Educational Media Foundation.
Possible effects
On Monday, Lloyd plugged the TV in his bedroom back into the wall, and the TV immediately made a sound and started playing music. He also demonstrated that when he changes the frequency on his radio, the music stays the same.
Lloyd’s neighbor Doug Helfert, 33, also said Monday he was concerned. Helfert had been having headaches and feeling very tired lately but didn’t connect it to the antenna until talking to Lloyd, he said.
“I had no clue,” he said.
Another neighbor, Kelly Hinkston, 49, said she first noticed something was wrong when gospel music from the radio station started playing through her computer speakers. Then she began feeling unusually tired and sick, she said.
“I had headaches,” she said. “I’m not a headache person.”
Okay… well I can see how Christian music would give someone a headache. But seriously: the levels in this case seem to be extremely high and reports are that this happened after some modifications were made to the broadcast tower. It’s possible that the antenna gain is not directed properly and that this is causing the signals to be focused toward homes in the area. It could also be that there is a leak somewhere in the feeds to the antenna that is causing the RF current to be conducted away from the tower and thus create ground noise.
Health effects from this kind of exposure are highly unlikely. The FCC sets limits for exposure by the general public to RF radiation from broadcasting with an extremely large safety margin. Even at well above these levels, no biological damage has been observed and the only proven mechanisms for biological effects of RF radiation – dialectic heating and related effects, would not be of concern in these circumstances.
That being said, there is good reason to complain here. The signals in this circumstance are so strong that they are overwhelming the tuner of the television and radios in the homes of locals, flooding the demodulator with unwanted signals and thus making it impossible to hear anything else. This is known to happen in circumstances where very high power transmitters are not properly positioned or directed and many ham radio operators have found that their close neighbors complain about noise on their telephone lines or televisions and radio.
Beyond these kind of effects, this kind of radio field can slow down cable modems and DSL systems by adding noise to the signals. It can interfere with cable television, satellite systems, cordless phones, cell phones and nearly any other wireless device. Even if on a different frequency, this kind of excessive RF radiation can flood receivers and even interfere with the oscillators on transmitters. Hearing the transmissions directly can occur on any equipment with an FM receiver, including televisions. It is less likely to hear the transmissions on speakers or other unamplified devices (although static or pulses may be heard). In the case of the computer speakers, it’s possible that this effect may be caused by flooding of the sound card of the computer, which may have a Frequency Modulation Synthesis system as part of the sound rendering circuitry.
In addition to interfering with wireless devices, in extreme circumstances, high power RF fields can occasionally cause damage to certain electronic systems or cause them to operate in an undesirable manner.
So… While the direct health effects are likely nill… this is a rare circumstance where the complaint actually has merit.
Additional Info:
It seems WROK is only licensed to broadcast at 3kw. That makes it a real pea-shooter of a radio station and negates any possibility that it could cause health effects unless a person was basically hugging the transmitting antenna. The antenna is relatively low and appears to share the mast with some additional antenna systems (possibly microwave relay). Given the low power, it confirms that this is almost certainly a severe malfunction such as a missalignment or a leak of RF current into the local ground or possibly the local power grid.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 2:32 am and is filed under Good Science, Misc, inverse square. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 28th, 2009 at 3:01 am
drbuzz0 said:
That is really disgusting. I think I have seen similar reports. They make it wonder just right to imply it has risen when in fact it has fallen, but others have fallen even faster. UG. It really makes me sick. The average person does not have the time to fact check all the news reports like that and it’s so clear what they are doing.
There are so many forces that work on this in the wrong direction: Yellow journalism, self promoters who want to make a hero out of themselves for telling the ‘truth’, then there are scammers selling products and finally some wackos who might even believe this ****. Togeather they can do so much damage!
Quote Comment
June 28th, 2009 at 10:04 am
I too get quite ill from Electromagnetic Fields.
It is sad that some of the people in these posts won’t take the time to research the matter
before name calling and disparagement.
There are plenty of people that have begun to recognize the harm done by excessive levels of Electromagnetic Fields and by RF Radiation.
Because some seem to have a vested interest in not exploring this further and there is little money to support honest research, it ought to be understansable to a person of either average intelligence that our human experience might actually be a leading indicator for this problem.
The only reason it will be more adequately studied is because more and more people will get sick, organize and raise awareness.
It will NOT be thoroughly, proactively and continually studied proactively, for there is no motivation to do so.
That notwithstanding, there is more than ample scientific evidence as well as a wide array of very tragic human experiences that reasonable people would deem worthy of concentrated attention – if not precautionary action.
The name callers here reveal themselves as intellectually dishonest.
The first step in any line of endeavor is to listen and understand….
Any person interested in the truth on this issue can easily look beyond the spin and find it.
This one website alone has a dizzying array of studies to explore:
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/science/studies.asp
Note just how many of them have found biological and/or health effects from EMF/RF exposures.
There is but one question.
Do high levels of electromagnetic fields and/or radiofrequency likely promote HEALTH and WELL BEING or not?
The answer is simply no. They do not.
As a result, people ought to be fully informed about their environment (informed consent) — and ought be able to make their own choices about exposure.
Instead, I’ll bet any critic here that NONE of you have any idea what the Magnetic Fields are in your home.
I’ll bet that any critic here that thay have no idea what NET CURRENT FLOW on water pipes is…and why the people who claim to have gotten sick as a result of high exposures may not have had the same experience of those unexposed.
I’ll bet that hardly anyone here has any idea what their exposure to RF/Microwave Fields are at home, at work, at your vacation spot, etc…and could not possibly draw accurate conclusions even from their own experience — let alone make generalizations and cast dispersion upon others.
You see people — since this stuff is invisible — and since no one is spending any money to educate you — you are being duped.
The natural truth is that Electromagnetic Fields and RF Radiation produce all sorts of negative consequences within the body — and those that are more HIGHLY exposed — who ultimately figure out why they are sick ought to be thanked and listened to….not shunned and blighted.
If you have illness and don’t know why please dig deeper.
Your experience will guide you:
http://www.weepinitiative.org/areyou.html
Have your house evaluated for Electromagnetic Field:
Use a “Trifield Meter” — Google it… The cheapest one is fine.
Have Your House Evaluated for Electrosmog and/or RF Radiation –
If you live near a cell tower (some are hidden in churches etc.)
move.
Turn off your Wireless and get rid of cordless phone.
Quote Comment
June 28th, 2009 at 11:26 am
http://wireless-protection-administrator.blogspot.com/2009/06/are-you-part-of-worlds-largest-ever.html
Quote Comment
June 28th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Why is it that when an ordinary person uses the same rf/emf shielding that the military and the high tech industry use to shield sensitive equipment they are deemed crazy to think the products work? What do you think a Faraday cage is and how do you think it works? I have spent the last four years doing extensive research in this field. There are products that block rfr and products that absorb it. But the best strategy is to keep as much distance from the emitting source as possible. The poor people in this story have literally had their home turned into a microwave oven. Just as the crossing radio waves in microwave oven create hot spots, so to do the microwaves in our atmosphere. For the unfortunate ones who live in these hot spots life has become hell. This was the case of my former home.
If you want to find a new job, rather than pushing harmful wireless devices, get one in the growing dirty electricity/rfr home inspection business. With the way things are headed this will soon be a booming growth industry.
Just as doctors used to tout the benefits of tobacco smoking, you will find most doctors today are unaware of the harmful effects of emf/rf. Being unaware is no protection and those in the health field have an onus to fully research this. There are thousands of studies that prove non thermal biological effects from emr/rf. And millions of people who have been able to correlate the damage to their health to exposure. What makes me angry are the people who are being harmed and have no idea that they could do something as simple as disabling the wireless on their router to alleviate the harm. The negligence of the wireless industry is criminal and will eventually come to light. I will continue to do what I can do to expedite this and hopefully prevent other people from becoming hypersensitized to emf/rf due to high exposures. This has happened to me and countless other people and it never should have happened. The studies date back to the 1950s. This is not new news.
Quote Comment
June 28th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Nothing like a bit of Astroturf to lend credence to this nonsence, eh?
Don’t you idiots understand that your anecdotes mean nothing because there is no way to tell if you are deluded, suffering from something else, or outright lying?
Do you understand that scientific fact is not determined by via public opinion, that scientific theory is not a mere opinion? The arguments that I see from your side are framed in the language of sales and persuasion, your conclusions based on polling data rather than physical data. Do you honestly think that the people that frequent these pages, most of whom have backgrounds in science or technical fields, are going to be impressed by a show of force? By unsubstantiated accusations that some of us are being paid to do this?
You have nothing other than your own belief in this, and somehow you think that a show of how hard you believe, and how many of you believe lends weight to your arguments. It just doesn’t work that way.
In the exchanges I had up thread I tried to show that depending on a fallacious appeal to authority is no proof of anything. Well nether is argumentum ad populum, the appeal to popular opinion fallacy. It simply doesn’t matter how many people believe something is true; popularity does not determine what is fact.
It is unfortunate that the web has permitted this sort of public hysteria to spread and gain converts. I fear this bodes ill for freedom of speech.
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June 28th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Angela Flynn said:
Those products have a legitimate purpose which I have said before they have. They are used in circumstances where very sensitive equipment is being tested or evaluated or in cases where equipment that transmits must be isolated from the local enviornment because it would cause unwanted interference with other equipment.
At the ARRL headquarters in Newington CT, for example, they have a whole room that is surrounded by grounded shielding and has enclosures which are individually shielded. The ARRL publishes reviews of equipment and when assessing the performance of rf receivers they need a very clean signal source and to be sure this is the case any external noise needs to be excluded.
The only time that this is really a safety concern is when they’re working on high power RF transmission systems when they are turned on. This is occasionally done in the military and they have protective suits that allow them to inspect radar while it is operating, but in the civillian world, it’s normally shut down for any kind of servicing. Most broadcasters have an auxiliary transmitter – often at a lower power – but it is easier and safer to do maintenance with the main transmitter shut down. They normally do it when demand or ratings are low, like in the very early morning.
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June 28th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Angela Flynn said:
This is one of those shibboleths that many with some health ax to grind against the Establishment like to trot out as an example where conventional wisdom was wrong. Unfortunately for them, the real story is very different.
The facts are this:
Although there was some work done before WWII, by the start of the Fifties the scientific and medical consensus was that smoking carried a significant risk of cancer. This was being told to the public via the popular press, and in 1952 Reader’s Digest (at the time a well respected mag, with a very wide circulation) reprinted a piece from The Christian Herald called “Cancer by the Carton.” This item in particular had a major impact on public opinion. The tobacco companies responded by mounting a campaign to, in their words “…produce and sustain the appearance of scientific skepticism and controversy in order to disrupt the emerging medical opinion that smoking is harmful”
To pull this off they procured the services of one C.C. Little to become scientific director of the newly minted Scientific Advisory Board of the Tobacco Research Committee. Little had been tossed from the University of Michigan on evidence of sexual impropriety with a coed, and also held a strict hereditarian view of biology and had been deeply involved with the eugenics movement in the Thirties. He already held the discredited view that all diseases, including cancer were traceable to poor genetics and rejected outright any evidence of environmental causes. He gave the tobacco industry just what it needed, a credentialed scientist willing to claim that there was a controversy over the evidence indicating smoking was bad for the health. Despite the fact that Little’s respectability in the scientific community was non-existent, the tobacco industry would leverage his public image as a scientist, and those of a handful of M.D.s that the bought, for almost fifty years.
Here’s the point as it applies to this issue: the mainstream was convinced that smoking was bad, it was the minority position represented by cranks and the corrupted that were pushing the opposite, and because the managed to convince the public that there was no general agreement that people continued to smoke, and more smoker took up the habit.
Now in this case the majority position among almost all radiation health specialists, oncologists and biophysicists is that low level RF is harmless, but it is a small band of those with financial interests, or who’s theories are on the fringes that are claiming that there is some impact. Just as the tobacco vendus managed to convince the public that there was disagreement on the subject, this group is doing the same, but with no more evidence than Little had.
You should really check your facts before bringing them up.
Quote Comment
June 28th, 2009 at 6:28 pm