Subject:  "Big villains" (Philips).
Date:     Tue, 05 Dec 2000 110654 -0600
From:     Roy Beavers 
To:       guru 
--------------------------------------------------

........From EMF-L......

Alasdair has found an interesting item -- written by a telecom engineer --
who "accepts" that **heavy cell phone use is going to be the 'big tobacco'
villain in twenty years**.......THERE WILL BE MORE!!!......guru......

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: "Big villains"
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 16:37:49
From: Alasdair Philips 
To: guru 


Roy
I found this on an Engineers news site: (dated 22nd November)
Read the last paragraph. Do he really say what I think he does ????
Alasdair

ChipCenter Communicator 

  http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=24715270&i=279927&d=647748

Hands-Free Radiation Is A Surprise Addiction
         by Paul McGoldrick

If you traverse just about any public place you must be aware of the 
people apparently talking to themselves but in fact using the latest 
fad equipment of hands-free phone operation -- the earpiece and the 
dangling cord with a microphone going down to the waist-secured 
cellular phone; besides the whole indecency issues of hearing these 
people making their business so public there is now a surprise for 
those who think they are having "safe phone." 

The Consumers' Association, the UK non-profit equivalent of the U.S. 
Consumers' Union, has been a vocal tester of cellular phone radiation,
publishing their reports in the magazine "Which?" They assumed -- like 
most of us? -- that hands-off kits would reduce the brain/cranium 
exposure to RF radiation. The British Department of Trade and Industry 
(DTI) commissioned tests and found that radiation was reduced with 
these kits; but it appears that their tests were flawed. 

"Which?" tested five phones with two different hands-free kits for 
each, a total of ten kits. They used a dummy head with a probe internal 
to it. The emissions were measured first with the phone handset up 
to the ear, the normal listening position. First surprise: The probe 
measured maximum radiation not behind the ear but in the cheek and jaw! 
So much for efficient shielding of the phone products. 

Then "Which?" measured the radiation using the hands-free kits; the 
first tests they had conducted startled them because in some cases 
they noticed that the measurements increased and that the maximum 
radiated locations had now moved to behind the ear. Then in this 
complete testing cycle they did something really smart: They varied 
the distance between the tip of the cell phone antenna and the earpiece. 

The radiation was at a maximum when the distance between the antenna 
and the ear was between 40 and 47 cm, and then between 58 and 75 cm, 
depending on the kit. Work it out for 900 MHz and add a few cm for 
not the antenna tip but the middle of the phone, and a few cm for 
the proximity of the ground plane (the person?) as an end-effect -- 
you will whisper "wavelength" to yourself. Yes, the hands-free kits 
are acting like antennas with nodes and antinodes appearing at the 
ear depending on the linear distance. Higher readings were measured, 
compared to the phone directly, between 46 and 259% higher. 

The DTI testing used specific absorption rate (SAR) tests but the 
conditions did not allow for the distance factor to exhibit itself 
so the anomaly was never caught. 

Again, of course, there are other problems. If you have ever seen 
an autopsy you would probably have been surprised by the way the 
organs of the human body are really a collective package rather 
than individual items. Putting the phone on your waist line just 
guarantees that one or another of the organs will receive a radiation 
dose that previously went into your cheek or jaw; and, of course, 
you have the chance of dinging your brain at the same time from 
the radiation at the earpiece. Oh joy! 

By the way you users of these hands-free kits in cars instead 
of a hardware installed kit -- in most states of the Union that 
earpiece is illegal. 

You may not accept, as I certainly do as an RF engineer, that heavy 
cell phone use is going to be the "Big Tobacco" villain in twenty 
years but if you're trying to cut down on your radiation don't 
assume the hands-free kit is going to do it for you. 
Cold turkey might be a better bet.


Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com