Mobile Phone radiation

Bacchus

What's the story with hands free kits. I'v heard that they decrease the exposure to radiation caused by mobile phones. I'v also heard that they do more damage.
Do they reduce the exposure, or is it just a marketing scheme/bad research?
Anyone have any good links on the effects of mobile phone radiation. I read an article that said test rats were subjected to the radiation of mobile phones for 50 days and almost 2% of their brain tissue was dead afterwards.
One more thing, mobiles spend a lot more time in your pocket, next to some pretty vital organs, can they do damage there?

sceptre

Let's put it this way - I wouldn't use a handsfree kit while my phone is in my crotch pocket*

Rats and mice are far more prone to cancer than humans anyway. I don't have details to back this up but I'm sure syke could provide the sciency stuff.



*I'm sure there's a better phrase for that. I can't think of it and at least we won't mix it up with a back pocket.

Ebonyks

Mobiles work on microwave frequencies not far from that of a microwave oven. So try this some time, put the mobile in the microwave (bear with me....and don't switch it on! ). Now you would think that the oven would have sufficient shielding to block any signal, but give the phone a ring and see what happens.

But anyway thats just for ****s n giggles. I still beleive there is minimal danger from mobiles. I don't want to go on, because there's enough opinions flying around on the net. Mind you i never leave the thing anywhere near me nutsack

gobby

does anybody know if those stupid little radiation blockers that u can get for ur phone actually work? or do they just light up and make you look gay while your on the phone?

Mutant_Fruit

Let me put it this way, if these things really did block radiation, would your phone work?

gobby

good point. mayby block was the wrong word. how about redirect. as in away from your head...

davros

Originally posted by gobby
good point. mayby block was the wrong word. how about redirect. as in away from your head...

No, complete waste of money.

One thing that might help is a bluetooth headset. It operates on a frequency in the same neighbourhood as a GSM phone but the power level is much lower since the signal need only travel a few feet. Your phone doesn't have to be on your person then.

There are some factors working in your favour also. Phone manufacturers desperately want to make your phone work for longer on a single charge. So it is in their interest to transmit with as low a power as possible and to limit, as far as possible, the radiation emptied into your head, since that is just wasted.

The more base stations around the city, the better for you too since the distance from phone to base station antenna is smaller and the phone can reduce transmit power. Thus, objections to new masts can be counterproductive in the sense that they require everyone's phone to crank up the power a bit just to reach a further away antenna.

All that said, there has been no conclusive evidence to date that using a mobile phone is harmful (in the radiation sense). But there is always the argument that we haven't been using these things for 50 years so we don't know what the long term cumulative effects will be. That is true, and I don't think it's unreasonable to take precautions.

Just forget about powerdomes and waveshields - they are simply very expensive ornaments.

Kali

Mobiles work on microwave frequencies not far from that of a microwave oven.

not quite.. while mobile phones are classified as microwave radiation (generally anything from 300Mhz to 300Ghz) they are much further down the spectrum than that which microwave ovens operate at.. typically mobile phones are in the 800-950Mhz bracket (theres actually several bands within that range).. microwave ovens operate around 2.5Ghz..

As far as your issue of shielding goes, ovens would only shield (to any great extent) their own operating range I'd imagine, and there are standards for that as well (power density outside the oven must be below a certain level).

Theres some good reading here, its an old old report from 1989 but well worth a read anyway (the thing syou look at when your bored in work)... it also highlights the mess that US bodies have to deal with when trying to bring in new standards (too many conflicting agencies and bodies).

http://ftp.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet56/oet56e3.pdf

davros

not quite.. while mobile phones are classified as microwave radiation (generally anything from 300Mhz to 300Ghz) they are much further down the spectrum than that which microwave ovens operate at.. typically mobile phones are in the 800-950Mhz bracket (theres actually several bands within that range).. microwave ovens operate around 2.5Ghz..

Typically, yes. But GSM also uses spectrum up around 1.8GHz. And 3G will be even closer to microwave oven frequencies. Not that oven frequencies are obviously worse than any other at the mobile phone power levels we are talking about. But frequency order-of-magnitude-wise, phones and ovens are in the same ballpark.

Kali

Originally posted by davros
Typically, yes. But GSM also uses spectrum up around 1.8GHz. And 3G will be even closer to microwave oven frequencies. Not that oven frequencies are obviously worse than any other at the mobile phone power levels we are talking about. But frequency order-of-magnitude-wise, phones and ovens are in the same ballpark.

Ahh good point I totally over-looked them.. still seems a bit dodgy, personally I'd rather 3G phones didn't try to warm and ionise my head whilst I'm on the phone