In another thread there were concerns being expressed about the effects of radiation. I have attached two website addresses which are interesting and also there is a Glossary of Terms and a list of Acronyms below which may help anyone who wishes to research in order to have an informed discussion on the subject.
Below is some information from two websites which gives an insight for a layperson on the situation with regard to microwave transmitter and microwave receiver radiation situation:
This is what is alleged to have happened to fire lookouts for the state of California in the summer of 2002.
By the end of fire season, Garcia and Jasso were so ill they were forced to retire and the lookout was closed to state personnel. Garcia, 52, is now severely disabled with fibromyalgia, auto-immune thyroiditis and acute nerve degeneration. Medical tests confirmed broken DNA strands in her blood and abnormal tissue death in her brain.
Garcia said the intense radiation from dozens of RF/microwave antennas surrounding the lookout heated the metals on her body enough to burn her skin. "I still have those scars," she says. "I never wore jewelry to work after that."
Website:
http://www.advancedhealthplan.com/radiation_poisoning.htmlThought it might be a good idea to put up a Glossary of Terms and Acronyms relating to institutes (USA and Other Countries) who have information on Human Exposure to Radio Frequency and Microwave Radiation from Portable and Mobile Telephones and Other Wireless Communication Devices.
This website refers to findings as at the year 2000:
http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/embs/comar/phone.htmGLOSSARY and ACRONYMSANSI - American National Standards Institute
EPA - (USA) Environmental Protection Agency
FDA - (USA) Food and Drug Administration
ICNIRP - International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
IEEE - The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
NCRP - National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements
NIOSH - (USA) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
NRPB - National Radiation Protection Board (United Kingdom)
OSHA - (USA) Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Analog Communications Channel - A communication channel in which the message being transmitted, for example voice, directly modulates the amplitude or frequency of a higher frequency RF or MW signal.
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) - A method of coding the digitized messages of several users and transmitting them at the same time using a single communication channel. Each user's message is decoded independently of the others.
Cellular Phone System - A system for mobile wireless communication where blocks of frequencies (channels) can be reused by dividing a geographical area into hexagonal "cells" each of which contains a transmit/receive base station antenna. A mobile user within a cell communicates with the base station in that cell or an adjacent cell depending on the strength of the received signals. As the usermoves from cell to cell, the connection between the user and network is maintained by "handing-off" the user from one base station to another, i.e., switching to a channel assigned to that base station.
Digital Communication Channel - A communication channel in which the message is encoded as a series of "ones" and "zeros" (binary code). This can be done in several ways, but a common scheme has the phase of a component of the transmitted signal switched in discrete steps to represent the "zeros" and "ones," respectively.
Directional Antenna - An antenna that radiates energy efficiently in a specific direction. For example, the energy from directional antennas used for personal wireless service, often called "high-gain," "panel," or "sector" antennas, is usually propagated in a relatively narrow beam in the vertical plane (of the order of 10 degrees) and typically 120 degrees in the horizontal plane.
Downlink - The communication connection (transmitted signal) from a base station to a mobile station.
ERP (Effective Radiated Power) - A measure of how well an antenna concentrates the radiated energy in a specific direction. An analogy can be drawn in a comparison between an ordinary light bulb and a spotlight. At a given distance, the light that falls on a surface in the beam of a 100 W spotlight is much brighter than that from an ordinary 100 W bulb at the same distance, because the spotlight concentrates the light into a beam. Correspondingly, the light that falls on a surface that is not in the beam of the spotlight is much less than that from the ordinary light bulb at the same distance.
FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access) - A method for carrying multiple messages during a RF or MW transmission by encoding the messages of different users as modulations of different carrier frequencies.
GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) - A hybrid TDMA/CDMA scheme widely used throughout Europe, and also becoming available in The USA.
High-Gain Antenna - an antenna whose radiation pattern is concentrated in a more or less narrow beam, i.e. a "directional antenna".
Microwatt (µW) - a power of one millionth of a watt.
Microwave (MW) - An electromagnetic wave with a wavelength between about one millimeter and 30 centimeters corresponding to a frequency between 300 GHz and 1 GHz.
Milliwatt (mW) - a power of one thousandth of a watt.
Omni-Directional Antenna - An antenna that radiates energy power more or less uniformly over an angle of 360 degrees in the horizontal plane around the antenna. Sometimes called a "low-gain" antenna. The familiar "whip" antennas are omnidirectional in their radiation patterns.
PCS (Personal Communication Service) - A term used by cellular service providers for digital service primarily in the 1800 - 2000 MHz frequency band. The term distinguishes this newer wireless protocol from cellular service at lower frequencies.
Power Flux - sometimes called "power density," is a measure of the radiated power reaching unit area of a surface. The accepted unit for this parameter is watts per square meter (W/m-sq). However, the older measure milliwatts per square centimeter (mW/cm-sq) is still encountered. 1 mW/cm-sq is equivalent to 10 W/m-sq.
Radio Frequency (RF) - frequencies of electromagnetic waves between approximately 3 kHz (3,000 Hz) and 300 GHz (3 x 1011 Hz). Sometimes, a distinction is drawn between radio waves, which have frequencies between 3 kHz and 1 GHz, and microwaves, which have a frequency between 1 GHz and 300 GHz.
SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) - A measure of the rate at which electromagnetic energy is absorbed by an exposed object. SAR, measured in watts per kilogram (W/kg), is the basic quantity from which modern RF and MW safety criteria (exposure limits) are derived.
TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) - A method for combining the messages of several users on a single radio channel by assigning each user a different time segment of each transmit interval.
Transceiver - A term used to describe a communication device that can both receive (detect) signals, and transmit signals.
Uplink - The communication connection (transmitted signal) from a mobile station to a base station.
