Friends,
I am considering buying a house that is about 650 feet from a radio transmission antenna. I have heard that recent studies indicate that there is no evidence of any danger but there is so much anecdotal "evidence" to the contrary I am becoming concerned. Is it safe to live this close to one?I don’t know about safety, but I have experienced problems living that close. When I was a kid, the next door neighbor had a ham radio antenna. When he spoke, it frequently came though our stereo. A couple decades later I moved into an apartment that was about a half mile from a 50,000 watt AM radio station. That station came in very clearly on both of my telephones. Actually, one phone was just unusable because it was so loud. Interestingly, I got my first computer about one month before I moved out. When I ran the phone line from the wall through the modem and then into the phone, the phone suddenly worked great.
I should mention the I grew up about 1/2 mile from 6 very powerful radio transmitters. Our phones would always play spanish music (wireless ones were especially bad). Another quirk is that radio controlled cars would twitch in time with said spanish music, moving forward/back/turning very slightly. Freaky, but not dangerous, and no signs of cancer yet.
I don’t know what anecdotal evidence you’ve heard, but I worked in broadcasting for nine years, much of that time directly under a tower and usually less than 10 feet away from the actual transmitter. Some of the old-timers had a slight hearing loss from the high-pitched whine of the transmitter, but that’s a problem when you’re 6 feet away, not 650.
It is possible, under some circumstances, to get an “RF burn” when you touch an antenna that’s carrying a high powered signal. But radio (or TV) emissions are not ionizing, and I’ve never seen unusual health problems among my broadcasting friends, and they get a lot more concentrated dose than you will.
I remember seeing a TV show (on the scifi channel, it think) that suggested EM waves made ghosts appear. It was mostly shots of a power antenna, accompanied by spooky music and the camera zooming in and out. I thought, “Damn! That’s the scariest antenna I’ve ever seen!”
Thanks for answering my post I have found out the antenna is used for communication with police and sheriffs dept. and only puts out 100 watts, I don’t believe this small output could be dangerous. A cellphone tower however is 1/2 mile away, maybe I am being paranoid? Can’t escape electomagnetic waves!!
Please take into account the ‘reverse placebo effect’, if you have any belief that something might harm you, you may start attrubuting every little ache and pain to it and actually magnifing it.
I’m not saying they are safe as I personally believe they have some harmful effect to human health, but I’m saying that even if they are truly safe the above effect might make them harmful to you.
Also the antenna project their EM ratiation perperdicular to their pointing direction (so a vertical antenna will project the EM ratiation mostly horizontally). People directly below will not get anywhere near the full brunt of EM radiation.
Sure it is. They hardly ever fall.
FAQs at GCRC Med College Wisconsin:
Cellphone antennas & Health
http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/cell-phone-health-faq/toc.html
Static E&M fields & cancer
http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/static-fields-cancer-FAQ/toc.html
Powerlines & cancer
http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/powerlines-cancer-FAQ/toc.html
Imagine yourself in a stadium for a night baseball game. Each one of those stadium lights are emitting electromagnetic radiation – mostly in the visible range we call ‘light.’ Each light is 1,500 watts. Put eight of them in a bank, you get 12,000 watts. Put six banks encircling a stadium and you get 72,000 watts. Now, are you afraid of the negative consequences of being exposed to 72,000 watts worth of electromagnetic radiation in that setting?
Then why should one be afraid of a 50,000 watt emitter of electromagnetic radiation – mostly in the ‘radio frequency’ range?
Now, some may say that visible light is harmless, while other frequencies can be harmful. Well, yes and no. Light can be harmful if you put your eyeball right up to a 1,500 watt bulb – you have nerve cells especially sensitive to EM frequencies in the visible light range. But at a distance, it’s physiological effect is neglible, especially to bodily tissue that’s not sensitive to light.
Bodily tissue is sensitive to some frequencies, like the ultra violet frequency that causes sun burns. Or to microwaves which can excite water molecules, and with soft tissue being mostly water…
However, forty microwaves at a hundred yards (a total of about 50,000 watts) with their doors open aren’t going to cook you. You’re too far away.
And these are the frequencies that your body tissues are sensitive to. Other frequencies, like radio waves, have very little effect on your body. If they had an effect like blindess, boiling you alive, or turning your skin red, we would have noticed.
Is it possible that these seemingly ineffectual frequencies have a sinister low level, accumulating deleterious effects that only show up over a long time (like exposure to low levels of radioactivity [which is not anything like electromagnetic radiation])? Sure. But there’s been no proof. It may be that the effect is only significant after many, many decades, but you’re only going to live eight decades all together anyway, so don’t sweat it.
Brought to you by the American Photon Council. “Photons, they’re everwhere. No really, we mean every single f-in’ place.”
Here’s this, too:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/mobilephone.html
If you use a cell phone, it is likely a moot point, though. Your cell phone is exposing you to much greater levels of RF energy than the towers that you describe.
The more pertinent point:
When you need to sell your property, will a potential buyer be scared off by that big-ass antenna?
I’d bet that it’s quite safe to live next to that tower from a health viewpoint. But if I were purchasing the property, I’d wonder how I’m going to sell it to the next person who might not be so well-informed.
If you feel that Joe/Jane Sixpack might be scared off by the EM issues, I’d consider taking a pass on the property, or you may end up with something that’s not very sellable when the time comes.