panaroma programme health implications on WIFI

beolight

High radiation levels picked up to 4 times stronger than radiation from mobile phone masts serious health implications yet no protests from anybody here

swedish goverment gives grants to people to paint rooms with anti radiation paint

white smoke?

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

not again:rolleyes:

cee_jay

Only saw some of the programme, but there is wireless available in my office, and the radiation levels were measured there last week, and showed as zero.
tbh wouldn't worry that much :rolleyes:

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

The 'radiation' emitted by wi-fi is Non-ionising radiation and completly harmless at the power levels used in these devices.

Saruman

Did not see it but is radiation the right word? I mean its not radiation in the classic geiger counter nuclear style is it? How would you measure it? Surely if its only radio waves then its not much more than a TV or radio?

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

Radiation sounds dramatic, but it is technically the correct word, but remember the light is also radiation, so is any radio or tv signal.

Trogdor

I saw the programme too, is there really nothing to worry about? How do you go about measuring it?

Findhan

Hi, I dont get this crap! Maybe Im wrong and we'll all end up with ten heads in the near future but virtually everything emits radiation. As your man above already said, its non-ionising. I did a quick search of the wavelengths of Wi-fi and it appears to be at 2.4GHz which I do believe is nowhere near ionising! So, perhaps its just a load of nonsense. We live with risks every day and I dont see this as a major one in any shape or form!

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

Findhan wrote:

Hi, I dont get this crap! Maybe Im wrong and we'll all end up with ten heads in the near future but virtually everything emits radiation. As your man above already said, its non-ionising. I did a quick search of the wavelengths of Wi-fi and it appears to be at 2.4GHz which I do believe is nowhere near ionising! So, perhaps its just a load of nonsense. We live with risks every day and I dont see this as a major one in any shape or form!

exactly, and we are talking about miliwatts of power here, absolutly tiny.

robinph

Isn't wifi running on the same range as microwave ovens, and I think they would do bad stuff to you if you put your head inside one, but people are still fine with having them in their homes clearly pumping out more "bad" radio waves than their laptops are.

bushy...

-80 dbm .... 0.00000001 miliwatts = lower receive threshold of most wireless cards

A common one i know puts out ~50miliwatts

Peanut

Didn't see the programme, but, there is unlikely to be a risk from the power levels of wifi for most people.

However, the Stewart report says -

"There is now scientific evidence, however, which suggests that there may
be biological effects occurring at exposures below these guidelines"

(the "thermal threshold" guidelines which apply in the UK & Ireland)

Stewart report overview

So, judging by the level of disagreement between researchers, it seems quite likely that there may be biological effects of non-ionising radiation at levels below the current guidelines.

It also seems very likely that the industry is aware of this, but will not admit it due to the risks being inflated by the media and public (which doesn't exactly help the industry so much in the long-term, but whatever...)

humaxf1

it's all a shower of 'do gooder' reasearch boffins trying to make a name for themselves.

People go out in the sun, sit in front of TV sets, talk on mobile phones, use microwave ovens and god knows what else...it all boils down to RADIATION, so why narrow it down to WIFI or GSM and make them out to be the baddies!

Making mountains out of molehills is the way I see it

Peanut

humaxf1 wrote:

it's all a shower of 'do gooder' reasearch boffins trying to make a name for themselves.

I think that's too narrow a view of it. If it was only a few lunatics then it could be easily dismissed. But don't you think that they were aware of that when researching the previously quoted report?

humaxf1 wrote:

People go out in the sun, sit in front of TV sets, talk on mobile phones, use microwave ovens and god knows what else...it all boils down to RADIATION, so why narrow it down to WIFI or GSM and make them out to be the baddies!

Well there's a very easy answer to that - personal liberty ...

You can choose whether to go out on a beach and get sunburnt, but you usually don't have any say in whether a given radio tower is put up near your house.

And it's clear that you can't lump all radiation sources together, they are quite different and will have different (or no) effects depending on the situation.

limklad

humaxf1 wrote:

People go out in the sun, sit in front of TV sets, talk on mobile phones, use microwave ovens and god knows what else...it all boils down to RADIATION, so why narrow it down to WIFI or GSM and make them out to be the baddies!

In order of magnitude from exposure to constant Radiation.
Put head nest to microwave ! heated head and most definetly head tumour with all those leaks!
Put Head in front of sun. Sun burn and skin cancer!
Head next to GSM Phone for long periods: Red and sore ear with all that listening to complaining and moaning!
Put head in front of TV sore eyes from bright lights from TV and possibly if you are lucky a tan.
WIFI - Sore fingers from constant surfing.

Dankoozy

Wifi killed Mo Mowlam

Peanut

Russia, Switzerland, China and Italy (amongst others) all have more restrictive non-ionising radiation limits than the UK, Ireland, USA etc.

"It should be stressed, that in contrast to the ICNIRP
(International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation
Protection) safety standards [13], which are based on the acute
thermal effects of microwaves, the standards adopted by the Russian
National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
(RNCNIRP) are based on the experimental data from chronic
(up to 4 month) exposures of animals to microwaves at various
physical parameters including intensity, frequency and
modulation, which were performed in the former Soviet
Union and Russia [10-12]."
link

Clearly, a consensus is lacking, and it's only right that people ask questions in such a situation, and it goes without saying, but, especially so when there is big money at stake (globally, there are 2.5 billion mobile phone users).

Snowbat

Caution is always good thing but people considering the issues raised by Panorama need to take a look at the background of their so-called "expert" (electrosmog campaigner selling shielding paint/netting/hats from his website), the reservations expressed about the design of his tests and conclusions drawn from them, and Panorama's hunt for sensationalism: http://www.badscience.net/?p=418

I didn't see the programme but I expect they carefully avoided looking at the field strengths and exposure levels to the BBC's own multi-megawatts of RF continuously pumped out on TV/LW/MW/SW/FM/Freeview/DAB aimed directly at the population.

For those that missed the Slashdot thread: BBC Kicked out of School Over Wi-Fi Scaremongering

"Ben Goldacre reports that the BBC Panorama team, while scaremongering over the dangers of Wi-fi, were told to leave the school because even the kids could see it was dumb: 'When the children saw Alasdair's Powerwatch website, and the excellent picture of the insulating mesh beekeeper hat that he sells (£27) to protect your head from excess microwave exposure, they were astonished and outraged. Panorama were calmly expelled from the school.' Should we be pleased that the kids can out-think TV producers?"

Peanut

Snowbat wrote:

...
I didn't see the programme but I expect they carefully avoided looking at the field strengths and exposure levels to the BBC's own multi-megawatts of RF continuously pumped out on TV/LW/MW/SW/FM/Freeview/DAB aimed directly at the population.

And you'll be happy to know, even in their latest report on non-ionising radiation, ComReg don't appear to look at frequencies above 3ghz.

2007 Programme of Measurement of Non-Ionising Radiation Emissions

Annex 2 - Methodology - "An initial survey of the area was conducted to determine the location(s) of
highest non-ionising radiation emissions. This was done by using a
broadband probe attached to a field strength meter to identify the position
of maximum field strength. The probe used for this initial investigation
measured and summed the contributions of all signals in the frequency
range 100 kHz to 3 GHz."

Yet there are many commercial services operating on frequencies above this.

Why are these not being measured? Especially since some of these services claim to be non-line of sight, and at these higher frequencies will need more power to provide NLOS coverage, compared to your GSM at 900Mhz?

I would like to see a programme about that.

Peanut

edit: In relation to Comreg, this is not quite correct, some mixed use sites are measured in less detail over 3Ghz, but the focus remains on GSM/3G services.