EMF superstore :)

[n7wsb]

Saw this on somethingawful.com -> http://www.lessemf.com/

Its a website that is trying to market field strength meters, aluminum hats and the like to people who are worried about exposure to radio waves. I thought it was pretty funny http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif.

[W7WV]

There is a fool born every minute. Look at how many people bought into the new years survival kits.

[n3mvf]

The FaradayCanopy is my favorite followed in a close second by the RF free boxer shorts!!!!!

I'm more worried about getting kicked in the privates then radiated by my cell phone or microwave.

Thanks for the laughs....site made my day.

73
Greg

[N7CPC]

Could this be a market for all that left over lead paint? http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

NNNN
N7CPC/cc

[kg6nus]

but if you read the website they claim lead doesnt work, and we all know these people msut be professionals in the subject of emf http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

some of their products i can see as havign a logical sue(material for wrapping cables, computer monitor sheilds to sheild the monitor from emf, not the user) but the completely silly stuff like emf resistant boxers and socks just voids any credibility they might have. as well as those radation pattern pictures with the sticker that wraps around the antenna? i mean come on, if you shield an antenna, how the hell is it gonna work? and why would a sheild jsut around the antenna lwoer the radiation emissions from anywhere else?

[N7CPC]

AHHHH but lead paint does work. Works very well as was proven by a pair of rocket scientists from Batalion support in S. Korea once upon a time in the early seventies. They decided it was time to repaint the radome on my LOPAR antenna. So they did. With lead paint. No runs, no drips and only one BIG error. I wont belabor the obvious, but the Magnatron didn't like it near as much as the potential target aircraft did!

73 de Craig......N7CPC http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[K5CEY]

Craig: Do you remember the average power output of the LOPAR? Seems it was about 700 watts.
# # # # # # # # # #John K5CEY #24P20 (24P2H) D 4 44

[K9STH]

The emf fears are like the fear of lightning that one of the math professors at Georgia Tech had back in the ealry to mid-1960s (I graduated in April of 1967 so I don't know what became of him). #This was Dr. Brown (real name!) who owned the house next door to my fraternity house (now, his daughter was VERY nice looking and very "sane"!). #He was deathly afraid of being struck by lightning. #Thus, he constructed a hat that had a six-inch piece of wire sticking straight up to act as a lightning rod. #This wire was connected by a "pin" jack to a wire that went inside of his shirt and down to his waist. #At that point, it split into wires that went down each leg to another set of pin jacks. #Those jacks connected to wires in his shoes that went to solid metal plates on each heel.

Dr. Brown, whenever outside, would wear this arrangement and always walked very "flat footed", keeping one heel flat on the ground at all times. #Once he got inside, he had no fear of lightning and walked and acted "normally". #He was proud of his "protection" and often "showed it off" to people. #He couldn't understand why other people didn't adopt his "protection" method and thus protect themselves from being struck by lightning. #Other than his morbid fear of lightning, he was a "regular" guy.

Glen, K9STH

[W5ATX]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (K9STH @ Nov. 29 2002,14:02)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">. . . The emf fears are like the fear of lightning that one of the math professors at Georgia Tech had back in the ealry to mid-1960s (I graduated in April of 1967 so I don't know what became of him). . .[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Glen,

That must be the guy I saw at a hamfest over this past summer. Or his twin. Or no, maybe it was just a hamnerd (new word) with his VHF dummy load on his head. One can never tell . . .

Some years ago, after coveting my neighbour's 100 foot tall tree forever, I got up the nerve to ask if I could run my antenna to it. The neighbour - Hal - told me he had been an SWL back in the day and would be honoured to have my wire in his tree.

My stepson and I put that sucker up right quick. Over 200 feet of wire, center-fed with open wire, that high up in the absloute clear. Wow. I'd be the envy of hams for miles around.

Until about 11.30 that night.

There was Hal, standing at my door, explaining that his wife wouldn't let him in the house until he came over and told me to take down that antenna. She just knew I was going to &quot;radiate the children.&quot; She had a friend who worked for LILCO (Long Island Lighting Company - the electric utility on Long Island NY at that time - they're gone now by the way, probably because folks like this &quot;friend&quot; ran the company!) and he told her I'd be radiating the children with xrays.

So of course I told him it was his yard and tree, and we'd take it down the next day. It was then that I heard about the built-in microwave oven that had once upon a time been in the house. Seems when they bought the house (I remembered thinking I'd rue that day as it happened too), one of the stipulations was that the sellers pay an electrician to remove the microwave. Later I would see where it had been - they had it removed, but never fixed the hole. She really DID worry about her children being radiated!

To get some measure of justice, and because I knew I never had an RFI problem, I reinstalled the wire completely over my own land. The end nearest the neighbour's house was about 20 feet from the kids' bedrooms - whereas it had been a hundred feet away while in their tree! I know it wasn't harmful, most of you know that, but trust me, I know for a fact that lady was SUPER relieved when my ex booted me out of there and the wire went away. But for several years, she thought for sure her children were being thoroughly radiated.

Then again, I guess the surplus TV dish with the purple neon tube like kids have on their cars didn't help her feel any better!!!!! THAT was the best!!!

Justice prevailed, and I was still making contacts just fine. Heh heh heh. . . .

73,
Chris

[W5ATX]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (n7wsb @ Nov. 28 2002,00:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Saw this on somethingawful.com -&gt; http://www.lessemf.com/

Its a website that is trying to market field strength meters, aluminum hats and the like to people who are worried about exposure to radio waves. I thought it was pretty funny :).[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Ya know what gets me about this stuff? Those folks are probably making a TON of money selling that stuff. Any one of us who reads that site can probably smell baloney. I can. But as far as I see, their lawyer did a good job going over it, as they don't make any false claims that jumped off the page at me. Just grossly alarmist stuff that grabs the nuts by the . . . you know, and shakes them up until the money flows out of their pockets. Oh well.

The big problem with this though is that it's the rich, famous and fruity types out in Hollywood who latch on to this stuff. Some famous nutcase will be hawking this junk of Oprah or something one day. And folks will stand up and listen.

You think the TV viewers won't fall right into line behind their favourite TV star? Guess again. This is the society where folks wrote to Marcus Welby MD for medical advice, and where old ladies smack soap opera personalities around for the misdeeds of the characters they play. If it's on TV, for more than half the folks watching, that makes it the truth.

Boy are we gonna be in for it then.

Good luck,

Chris

[W1RFI]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (W5ATX @ Nov. 28 2002,13:31)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Ya know what gets me about this stuff? #Those folks are probably making a TON of money selling that stuff. #Any one of us who reads that site can probably smell baloney. #I can. #But as far as I see, their lawyer did a good job going over it, as they don't make any false claims that jumped off the page at me. #Just grossly alarmist stuff that grabs the nuts by the . . . you know, and shakes them up until the money flows out of their pockets. #Oh well.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I have seen similar sites that are much worse. Fortunately, the FCC has taken a more balanced approach, especially wrt amateur radio. (See http://www.arrl.org/rfsafety for info, if you wish.)

The interesting part of all of this is that this may be one of the most conservative safety standards I am aware of. The FCC regulations are a hybrid of the IEEE/ANSI C95 standard and the standards of the National Council for Radiation Protection and Measurement. Both are similar.

As the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee SCC-28 has put together the standard, the committee looked a well over a thousand research papers at this point. The committee consists of a pretty good balance between researchers, government and industry, with a few &quot;users&quot; such as ARRL tossed in for good measure.

The papers studied included a wide range of animal and human volunteer studies. As an example of the basis for the standard, in those papers, they found that at an exposure level where an abosbtion rate of 4 watts/kilogram of body mass was occuring, animals and humans showed difficulty performing complex tasks. This would be the equivalent of locking yourself in a closet just big enough to hold you and running a 500-watt electric heater at full bore. Naturally, one of the effects of this exposure level is heat.

So if the trained the monkey to push the button 5 times and get a banana, and put him in this very strong field, he stopped pushing the button. Remove the field, and he was hungry after all.

They then built in safety factors -- a factor of 10 for the controlled/occupational exposure level and a factor of 50 for the uncontrolled/general public level of exposure. So the uncontrolled limit was literally set at a level that is 2% of what made a monkey not want to eat a banana.

Amateur radio fared quite well in the rules, all things considered. ARRL asked that the FCC continue the categorical exemption for amateur radio, but several amateurs filed comments, asking the FCC to include amateur radio in any rules changes.

The result was that the FCC required amateurs to do an evaluation of their station. After a few go arounds, primarily with ARRL, the FCC finalized the rules to require hams who use more than a power level of 500 watts on 40 meters and down (where the permitted exposure is higher) to 50 watts on 10 meters and VHF to evaluate their stations.

This evaluation can range from the very simple, using the University of Texas' web-page calculator, to more complex evalations using antenna modeling for those few stations that need a more accurate analysis. (The web calculator is very conservative, assuming that the exposure is taking place in the main beam of the antenna, which often radiates upward, well away from people.)

About 2 months after the final rules came out, ARRL published &quot;RF Exposure and You,&quot; a book whose purpose was both to help hams understand the rules, but to demonstrate to the Commission and the world that amateur radio had its act together. The Secretary of SCC-28 told me that it was the best example of a compliance manual that he could have ever have imagined.

Most hams do not need the book. :-) And if anyone has any questions about this subject or their station evaluation, contact me at ARRL HQ and I will do what I can to help.

73,
Ed Hare, W1RFI