Cellphone Tower Fears... oh brother

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Cellphone Tower Fears... oh brother

megasquid

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#19762 29-Feb-2008 13:44

"Leaders of a Nelson playcentre, upset over plans to build a 22m-high cellphone tower metres from where dozens of preschoolers play, fear parents will pull their children out." OMG!?! What happened to common sense and a basic education? Why don't these parents do the right thing and read up on how cellphones and their towers work. Better that than stay ignorant and resort to threatening the the jobs of staff at the playcentre and blackmailing an enterprise operating within the law.

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#113783 29-Feb-2008 13:59

I think people should be more worried about living under power lines than cellphone towers!

In my homeland, Taiwan, we have cellphone towers / cells all over the place - I am do mean that literally! They place them on top of apartments, two- to three-level buildings, on traffic lights, etc. Yet, it did not result in more people getting cancer or any other illnesses.

What's even more interesting is that the life expectancy in Taiwan - keeping in mind the pollution AND the cellphone towers - is about 3-4 years longer than NZ:)

That's my 2 cents, hehe.

mushion22

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#113810 29-Feb-2008 16:21

The way the signal is shaped/spread from cell towers means that right below around the base of a tower is where the least radiation is, right?

And yes - power lines are pretty bad with magetic feilds, especially high voltage pylons.

hellonearthisman

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#113820 29-Feb-2008 17:12

People fear what they don't understand, it's a bit like the old style witch hunt.
People seem to get very protective over there children, I think they should worry more about the artificial junk that goes into there food than cell tower radiation.

megasquid

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#113821 29-Feb-2008 17:14

Well this is part of the problem, don't even even get me started on the word "radiation".
Electro-magnetic energy is from the part of the spectrum where only non-ionic radiation resides and presents itself as heat from things like light bulbs, kettles, TVs, washing mashines and are all measured in watts. Unlike chromosome altering ionic radiation like the common doctors xray, there is no Plutonium, Uranium or any other dangerous isotope in your clock radio, fridge, electric toothbrush, cellphone or cellphone tower. In fact a tower produces about 400 watts of energy (heat) while a fridge motor is about 500 watts. Oh and watch out for your 1200 watt vacuum cleaner!!

eXDee

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#113822 29-Feb-2008 17:18

This annoys me, because people complain about radio waves being linked to cancer etc when something like this is deployed near them, yet they are constantly around radio waves 24/7.
WiFi, TV broadcasts, Cellphone networks, Satellites, Cordless phones, Bluetooth, Microwaves etc etc
I'm sure they wouldnt be too happy about their TV being turned off to apparently prevent them from getting cancer.

Bottom of the tower is probably 'safer' than 50m away anyway, as already said, a tower doesnt broadcast towards the ground.

coffeebaron

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#113826 29-Feb-2008 17:57

Yea, I remember a few years back big protests outside Green Bay school in west Ak, against Telecom wanting to install a tower near by. So why did many of these protesters have cellphones clipped to the wastes? Duh!

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mushion22

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#113870 1-Mar-2008 04:11

megasquid: Well this is part of the problem, don't even even get me started on the word "radiation".

Haha sorry, I should have said 'electromagnetic energy' or something. I meant radiation as in radio waves. I should certainly hope there are no radioactive isotopes in the cell towers! Although who knows what the empi... Telecom is up to these days ;)

The Playcentre does have some small amount of legitimacy for argument in that there are varying studies in links between cellphones and cancer, so as long as there is any amount of uncertainty or risk then they could argue that Telecom should be taking 'reasonable precautions' in cell site location. If a loving caring protective parent had the choice between a playcentre with a cell tower next door, and one with out a cell tower next door, taking into account the media reporing on controversial studies and such, they are indeed probably going to choose the playcentre with no cell tower, regardless of scientific basis for the decision.

Emotional descision making, eh?. S

(Robot voice) DOES NOT COMPUTE, eh?!! ;)

(Sorry, am in Canada at the moment, can't resist adding the ,eh?)

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mckenndk

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Ultimate Geek

#113885 1-Mar-2008 09:03

I don't think there will be many cell towers around chernobyl so they could move the school there, there are even empty buildings for anyone to move into.

What you can't see can't hurt you.

cokemaster

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#113895 1-Mar-2008 09:40

They'll complain if they can't make calls in a certain area...

They'll complain if an operator wants to build a cellsite to remedy that.

But people don't want cellsites near them.... but they want to make calls... Go figure.

Not in my backyard sucks, but is well and truly entrenched in New Zealand (and encouraged in some cases) and other western countries.

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sbiddle

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#113897 1-Mar-2008 10:19

In a country where childhood obestity is reaching epidemic proportions due to a lack of exercise and extremely high carb, high sugar, high fat diets that are all scientifically proven to substancially reduce life expentency and data proves links to diseases such as cancer and diabetes I would have thought parents would have had far more to worry about than a simple cellsite.

Like GM food cellsites have been around for many years now and yet there is no conclusive scientific data showing that they're killing us!

ajobbins

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#114129 2-Mar-2008 15:37

megasquid: Oh and watch out for your 1200 watt vacuum cleaner!!

Oh no! I just got a 2200w vacuum cleaner today. I'm gonna die!

hellonearthisman

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#114132 2-Mar-2008 15:46

adamj:
megasquid: Oh and watch out for your 1200 watt vacuum cleaner!!

Oh no! I just got a 2200w vacuum cleaner today. I'm gonna die!

Well that sucks... loI

Loftus

140 posts

Master Geek

#114136 2-Mar-2008 15:58

mushion22: The way the signal is shaped/spread from cell towers means that right below around the base of a tower is where the least radiation is, right?

Yep, The antennas are designed to direct most of the tiny amount of rf energy transmitted towards the horizon in order to maximise the size of the sites coverage footprint.

This is why, generally speaking, the taller the cell tower, the lower the RF levels at ground level. Unfortunately the RMA requirements in NZ greatly favour shorter towers, which in turn means we need a lot more of them to cover the same area.

weblordpepe

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#114212 2-Mar-2008 20:19

I'm always pushing for proper education around science. Granted parents have only their kids bests interests at heart - we can't fault them for that, but education is important too is it not?

hellonearthisman

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#114370 3-Mar-2008 18:06

This podcast from ABC radio 2008-03-02 on "Why frogs don't like mobile phones"

Has a few really good points on the abstracts of science, you know, the stuff we have not learned.

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