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Is there any real evidence that living near a mobile phone mast can give rise to health problems?
Last edited by: L'escargot on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 09:05
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This may not be unbiased and dates from 2006 www.radiationresearch.org/pdfs/20061101_base_stations_health_concerns.pdf
I think personally that there is no proven connection. I have had the winter flu jab for the last 10 years and I have not had any flu or flu-like symptoms. Coincidence or connection?
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I was thinking of buying this gaff a few years ago but decided against it due to the blimmin mast opposite.
goo.gl/maps/1eKmP
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If being bathed in radio waves turns out to be bad for us we are all doomed.
I'll hedge my bets a bit by not living next to a phone mast anyway.
I'm not sure there is proof out there, but it seems entirely feasible that it isn't good for you.
The trouble is, it's no good asking people who know they live near a phone mast.
There's a bloke here who lives in a caravan in a dingley dell. He believes he's electro sensitive.
www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/20/man-living-alone-woods-escape-wifi-mobiles
This chap was driven to take his own life -
www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Zapping-in-head-from-mobiles-led-son-to-kill-himself-06112012.htm
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I cover my head with tinfoil for safety..
tinyurl.com/d77sj6v
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No, there is not.
However, there is no proof that it does not, either.
Ditto pylons.
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Mind you, if it was me, I'd be a darn sight more worried about the transmitter I hold against my head rather than the one at the bottom of the garden.
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>> Mind you, if it was me, I'd be a darn sight more worried about the
>> transmitter I hold against my head rather than the one at the bottom of the
>> garden.
Ah but the thing is you are not bathed in that all day and night.
There is no proof one way or the other, but there is certainly much more proof that there are more certain causes of cancer. Asbestos, Smoking, Chemicals, Genes, Diet, Radon.
Mobile phone masts come a long long long way behind them.
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I managed to get the national grid power lines removed from over my garden, years ago.
The silly sods hadn't been paying the wayleave or obeying the 'act' that controlled them.
They turned up with a field strength meter to try and prove there was no danger. I asked to see its calibration certificate. The lies that followed really annoyed me.
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>>
>> Ah but the thing is you are not bathed in that all day and night.
>>
Some people are.
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>> There is no proof one way or the other, but there is certainly much more
>> proof that there are more certain causes of cancer. ................ Genes, ...........
According to my haematologist, mutation of genes can be caused by exposure to external radiation.
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>> >> There is no proof one way or the other, but there is certainly much
>> more
>> >> proof that there are more certain causes of cancer. ................ Genes, ...........
>>
>> According to my haematologist, mutation of genes can be caused by exposure to external radiation.
>>
The thing is, it's not that simple (is it ever?).
Your genes are being damaged and mutated all the time - ionising radiation (from radon, UV light, cosmic rays etc) along with free radicals, carcinogens, and mistakes in DNA replication.
This raises the question: why don't we all have two heads, or cancer, or both? The answer is that DNA is incredibly resilient. Incredibly. Mistakes in the copying process are corrected. Damaged parts might be non-coding, or still code the same amino acid. Severely damaged DNA triggers apoptosis (programmed cell death). This is why it's actually difficult to predict whether radiation will give someone cancer, and it's basically a probability game which varies depending from person to person.
Cancer comes about when a terribly unlucky mutation occurs on a very vulnerable part of the genome which controls cell growth. It's more of a Swiss-cheese effect, like most complicated things, than a single cause. Interestingly, the rapid duplication of cancer cells is what makes them vulnerable to both chemo and radiotherapy.
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>> >> There is no proof one way or the other, but there is certainly much
>> more
>> >> proof that there are more certain causes of cancer. ................ Genes, ...........
>>
>> According to my haematologist, mutation of genes can be caused by exposure to external radiation.
Its not a matter of your genes mutating, your non mutated genes may have a natural predilection to cancer. The only thing to blame is your forebears.
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Doubtful. Might warm you up a bit.
I have a femtocell sitting in the living room. Neighbour commented that I should have asked them first before installing it due to "health concerns". Pointed out that it draws 5W at maximum. She didn't understand.
Radon, coal fired power stations, diesel fumes, cosmic rays, UV from the sun (what sun etc), preservatives etc should all pose a bigger worry.
Having said that, I'd never live under electricity lines 'cos the buzzing would drive me nuts, even if I did use it to get free fluorescent lighting.
Edit: Posted at the same time as Zero. Clearly great minds think alike (or run in the same gutter!) ;-)
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 10:46
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>>cosmic rays,
Don't you magnificent men in flying machines get measurably more of that? Enough to make a difference I seem to remember.
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Parents lived near Parliament Hill, Daventry for a while. Big radio masts on top, less than a mile away. Could hear World Service from the bedsprings. Not to mention, TV tuning was redundant after about 9pm. You got what they broadcast most strongly. I think they devised an alternative to the off switch later.
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>> Parents lived near Parliament Hill, Daventry for a while. Big radio masts on top, less
>> than a mile away.
I remember those, several self supporting towers. We could see them from the end of the road but at least far enough away to avoid permanent World Service. They were taken down about 20 years ago but recreated in a laser show for the anniversary last summer.
There's now a single guyed mast there originally for digital radio experiments and now providing infill between Midlands and South East.
The ULF masts at Rugby went too, between 2004 and 2007. I still miss the sight of their red anti collision beacons as a marker of being nearly home from the north.
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Rugby ULF? Is that like the HMS Inskip array? I'd forgotten those. Could see them from the train to and from the Smoke.
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>> Rugby ULF? Is that like the HMS Inskip array? I'd forgotten those. Could see them
>> from the train to and from the Smoke.
Ultra Low Frequency (actually Very Low Frequency so VLF) around 60khz used for communicating with subs I believe. The aerial was strung between 12 800foot masts. The fast lines of the West Coast line went to the west of the site and the slow (Northampton) lines to the east before coming together at Hilmorton Junction.
Where is HMS Inskip?
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>> >> Rugby ULF? Is that like the HMS Inskip array? I'd forgotten those. Could see
>> them
>> >> from the train to and from the Smoke.
>>
>> Ultra Low Frequency (actually Very Low Frequency so VLF) around 60khz used for communicating with
>> subs I believe.
While they were under water.
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>> >> Rugby ULF? Is that like the HMS Inskip array? I'd forgotten those. Could see
>> them
>> >> from the train to and from the Smoke.
>>
>> Ultra Low Frequency (actually Very Low Frequency so VLF) around 60khz used for communicating with
>> subs I believe.
I was involved with telex machines at what I believe was a VLF radio station (we were encouraged not to be nosey). One of the staff told us a tale about them losing power to the aerial. They eventually tracked it down to a resident who had a garage adjacent to the boundary who found he didn't need to run a power supply to its fluorescent light, but picked it up from the radiation of the feeder running alongside.
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West of Preston, not far from Blackpool, in the Fylde. I've been to the mess, but know nothing other than the sub connection.
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>> >>cosmic rays,
>>
>> Don't you magnificent men in flying machines get measurably more of that? Enough to make
>> a difference I seem to remember.
>>
Yes, it has to be monitored.
The rostering software looks at the great circle routes between destinations, weather, solar activity etc and comes up with a guess at radiation dose. I think it's about 3 mSv/year but curiosity is piqued now, will check next time I'm in work.
(3 mSv is about 10% of a full body CT scan, hence my intense loathing of private health companies charging £1000+ for "body MOTs").
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If you want to worry about radiation worry about the massive does of ultra violet radiation emitted by the sun. A known cause of skin cancer and very common but hardly anyone cares about it until its too late. Its any interesting insight on how we perceive risk. People worry and theorise over some imperceptible risk from mobile phones or power lines but don't care about the very real and proved risk of solar radiation.
Your mobile phone or power line wont kill you - skin cancer caused by sunlight may well do so.
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One can sense and avoid UV rays, easily. Mobile phone masts are visible but their emissions are not and are not felt by the human body plus, they have not been around for long enough for any reasonable findings to be made about their long term effect.
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>> One can sense and avoid UV rays, easily. Mobile phone masts are visible but their
>> emissions are not and are not felt by the human body plus, they have not
>> been around for long enough for any reasonable findings to be made about their long
>> term effect.
>>
It would be highly, highly, unlikely that a mobile phone mast could give you cancer since the radiation emitted is microwave and therefore non-ionising.
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>> It would be highly, highly, unlikely that a mobile phone mast could give you cancer
>> since the radiation emitted is microwave and therefore non-ionising.
>>
It might be wise to wrap your extremities in foil though.
Didn't the early radar transmitters cook passing birds, leading to the invention of the microwave oven?
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I'd heard recently that the invention of the microwave oven was down to one of the radar pioneers finally working out what was causing the chocolate to melt oddly in his top pocket...
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>> Didn't the early radar transmitters cook passing birds,
No, they were not microwave. Not till later.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 16:29
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this is the fella I was thinking about:
Percy LeBaron Spencer
The dates for magnetrons and microwave ovens are several years after the pioneering work,
as the Z-man sez.
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>>It might be wise to wrap your extremities in foil though.
I heard of a TV repairman who blamed his sterility on bending over the back of tellys.
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I spent most of one decade with a two way radio glued to my ear all day, it never did me any harm.
Despite what the judge and the psychiatrists said.
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"One can sense and avoid UV rays, easily. "
Over 100,000 people are diagnosed with malignant or non malignant melanoma every year. In the Uk you have on average 1 in 60 chance of contracting the disease. We don't seem to be too good at avoiding the cause even though it is known and few people take any precautions to avoid sun burn
As far as I am aware no one has ever been diagnosed with cancer arising from living near a mobile phone mast and the scientific evidence strongly suggest they never will be.
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NO.
As for the barking BBC woman who created all that fuss about masts, the radiation from the mast is 1000 times or so less than from the handset ! ! !
So, how many mobile-user's with hand cancer have you seen? As for actual radiation received, having a mast near to a school can actually result in less radiation than when it is further away because the handset turns it's power down when it receives a better signal.
Ionising radiation is caused by the million times or so shorter wavelength of UV light. In general we are bathed in electro-magnetic radiation all day by light in general.
Sorry if I have repeated stuff already written, I have not read all the thread.
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The phone is more likely to be a problem than the transmitter. Phones are clever and vary their transmission power to suit the circumstance - high power when far from the transmission aerial.
Bit tongue in cheek, but you mabe less liable to have a problem if the transmitter is in your back garden rather than 400 yards down the road.
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Being able to turn power down automatically is a trivial bit of electronic circuitry. I would not exactly call it smart, but it does save the mobile's battery power and also reduces the hand-set to handset interference which, potentially, can cause loss of signal.
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Health problems near mobile phone masts - Meldrew
