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Fascinating.

http://www.rfsafetysolutions.com/RF%20Radiation%20Pages/Biological_Effects.html

The eyes are the main thing. You have to be so careful. Several of the antenna riggers whom I used to work with developed brain cancer/cataracts/a form of eye cancer. One had his left eye removed, one died and one has some serious problems with tumours. These guys were working on the back of large satellite antennas ( 110 feet across ). The panels that made up the parabolic reflectors had little gaps in them and tiny "safe according the manual" amounts of energy leaked through ( unable to switch off the RF due to the tens of thousands of telephone calls going through.....money ).

One doctor told me the chances of the three of them developing those ailments independent of where they worked were equivalent to winning the lottery five times in succession.

Wi-Fi presents no problems that I can see ( but do not have a Wi-Fi router close to your head ...foot or so away in an office ). It's the cell phones we should be careful with. Nothing wrong with making a hour or so's worth of calls a day with the phone up to the head, but beyond that ( people who have them "glued" to their head all day).......well good luck to you.

The main problem with all these safety studies and reports is that each person is a unique biological entity. Our sensitivity thresholds for pain, heat, cold etc varies from one human to another. The amount of RF energy required to cause damage at the cellular level varies tremendously. While the "average" person may need x units of RF before damage occurs, if you are one of the unlucky ones down at the "bottom of the distribution curve or bell curve", you may only need a tiny, tiny fraction of that amount to potentially cause damage.

Near high power radio stations, you can get some serious burns from RF. Did a job near a transmitter in the UK. Every time we opened the doors of the car...bzzzzzzz. It stung !!

Dave

Well thats is surely Fascinating.

The main problem with RF is that it is invisible to the naked eye. There are specialized radiation detectors that can be used in stations with high power RF systems such as satellite stations, TV transmitter stations etc. The problem is not so much due to the fact that they are transmitting RF, but rather due to "leakage". If a waveguide joint has not been tightened correctly, or the bolts have started to become loose from vibration due to cooling fans etc, that's where danger can occur.

To anyone who has the phone "glued to their head" all day long, or allows young children ( whose tissues are highly different from those of adults ) to use nicely colored cell phones, because they look "so darn cute with those phones" , they may want to reconsider.

Most of it is really common sense.

To reiterate, although RF can pose dangers, with common sense and use of appropriate safety procedures, there is nothing to worry about.

If you work with Wi-Fi, you are perfectly safe. Just two caveats:

1. In an office etc, don't have a wireless router antenna right beside your head as I have seen in some places ( biological RF damage is cumulative ).

2. With outdoor links, NEVER stick your head in front of a directional antenna that is active. Even with omnis, keep your head and eyes away from close proximity to an actively transmitting bridge link etc.

Wi-Fi is perfectly safe if common sense is used.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/9671/RF-burns-from-a-microwave
http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/mri/chap-9/images/rf-burn.jpg

Dave

http://emf.mercola.com/sites/emf/archive/2011/01/19/the-hard-core-science-of-how-cell-phones-and-other-emf-damages-you.aspx

Dave

From the instruction the US Army gave years ago, the main problem with RF is the heating of body parts. For males this includes the eyes and the testicles. None of the studies I have read were done on long term - low level exposures. Guess we will find out in 25 or 30 years about the 800 MHz through about 5 GHz (Cell phones and WiFi) low level - long term exposure effects.

Watching the video by Dr. Blank. Dave, thanks for the link.

Hi Hubbard

You've hit the nail on the head. It's the long term exposure that's the issue. The health studies cost a lot of money. Many have been done. When you start to dig into who sponsors many of the ones that say "No problems found here !!", you find seemly innocuous names. Then you find out who is behind those names. Dolls within dolls. Can't say anything on an open forum, but who has tons of money and would like to "hide" behind other names......hmmmmmm

Dave