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Staying Safe Around RF - An industry expert tells all

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by W0PV, Nov 11, 2019.

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  1. W0PV

    W0PV Ham Member QRZ Page

    An important and interesting subject to radio amateurs. This recent article in TVTechnology describes a seminar conducted for professionals conducted by Ric K5UJU to teach how to cope with the dangers faced from exposure to high RF fields.

    The posted text are just a few paragraphs from the introduction. Click on the bold blue headline link below for the entire article, composed by James E. O'Neal.

    73, John, WØPV

    Staying Safe Around RF - An industry expert tells all.

    COLUMBIA, Md.—By his own admission, Richard Tell @K5UJU has climbed lots of broadcast towers, gotten himself exposed to some really intense radio frequency fields, suffered RF burns and on occasion has even (accidentally) burned out “some fancy test equipment,” but “never to my knowledge experienced a health effect from my work in RF fields, except for the burns.”

    Tell, now 75, and an industry expert in the effects of RF radiation on the human body, shared some of his experiences and deep knowledge of the subject at an RF safety seminar put together by the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore SBE chapters under the auspices of Fred Williard, an officer of the D.C. chapter, and hosted by Rohde & Schwarz at their North American headquarters and training facility.

    Tell’s presentation—“Staying Safe In RF Fields”—was tailored to provide broadcast engineering personnel and others involved in RF work with the knowledge they need to stay safe and prevent injury. The free day-long course attracted transmitter operators, station and broadcast group personnel, consulting engineers, network employees, two-way radio service technicians, government and military employees, amateur radio operators and even a SiriusXM satellite radio representative from as far away as New York and Richmond, Va.

    Tell, an IEEE Life Fellow and chair of RF safety-related committees within IEEE, spent some 20 years with the federal government, working for the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, and later serving as chief of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Electromagnetics Branch, and providing technical support to the FCC when that agency was setting new rules for human exposure to RF fields.

    His 52-year-long career not only includes laboratory work and computer modeling, but also plenty of “hands-on” experience—including purposefully subjecting himself to RF currents—that makes him uniquely qualified to impart knowledge and field inquiries into this sometimes rather gray area of radio and TV station operations.

    WHERE THE DANGER LIES ...

    PROTECTIVE MEASURES ...

    (click on link here or above to continue reading)

    [​IMG]
     
    K2NCC, KE9OL and MM7WAB like this.
  2. KL7AJ

    KL7AJ Ham Member QRZ Page

    I've been fairly well marinated in RF for the past 50 years....but most of it's been pretty low frequency....AM broadcasting, HAARP....that sort of thing. Also spent a few years working on a TPS-77 medium range radar, which is also pretty benign. As anyone will tell you, I'm perfectly NORMAL!
     
  3. KN4DQE

    KN4DQE Ham Member QRZ Page

    Someone should tell these guys:

     
    AB9TX likes this.
  4. K0UO

    K0UO Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    Rick has been a professional in the RF safety industry for several decades, and even though we have been competitors in the RF Safety Consulting industry, I truly respect his work.
     
    KE9OL likes this.
  5. G3SEA

    G3SEA Ham Member QRZ Page

    Excellent article by a Professional and well worth reading by all Hams and Professionals :cool:

    G3SEA/KH6
     
    KE9OL likes this.
  6. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    We ALL know that its that LOW LEVEL RF that gives you THYMUS CANCER (even though adults have virtually no thymus) because DNA is a FRACTAL ANTENNA...r-i-i-i-g-h-t??

    NOT!

    :)
     
    KE9OL likes this.
  7. ND6M

    ND6M Ham Member QRZ Page

    Off Handed remarks about an aggressive cancer that has only a 30% 5 year survival rate..............Are in poor taste,at best.
     
    NX1V likes this.
  8. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    Then you dont understand the concept of sarcasm. Try reading it again and think. . . . .
     
    N0AMY, KE9OL, AE8W and 1 other person like this.
  9. MW1CFN

    MW1CFN Ham Member QRZ Page

    I can't see the point of this for amateurs. It also adds to the library of material that the catastrophists who want to stop ham installations can mis-quote, and feed to eager ignorant ears in local planning departments.

    Such as: “The ‘take-home’ here is that if you feel warmer than you suspect would be normal, back off and ensure that your exposure is within the accepted limits.”

    Short of standing in front of a Yagi sending high power - and why would that occur when the radio is at ground level, and the antenna up on a tower - who the hell is going to start feeling warm solely due to RF during ham radio operations?
     
  10. AB9TX

    AB9TX Premium Subscriber QRZ Page

    Last edited: Nov 21, 2019
    K0UO likes this.
  11. KD0CAC

    KD0CAC Ham Member QRZ Page

    "
    who the hell is going to start feeling warm solely due to RF during ham radio operations? "
    MW1CFN

    CHICKEN LITTLE ;)
     
  12. K2HRO

    K2HRO Ham Member QRZ Page

    I worked for a TV station with 1 megawatt ERP. Our protocol was to drop the power but I always shut down. Corporate told us a 10 minute exposure would cause the guys who changed our light bulbs to die within days. I took no chances.
     
    K0UO likes this.
  13. K0UO

    K0UO Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    The point is most amateur stations are safe, but you are required to determine your MPE maximum permissible exposure. And it is of particular important if you have close Neighbors.

    As amateurs in the United States we are very fortunate that the FCC enacted an RF safety level.
    There were many localities and activist groups throughout the United States that were attempting to create local ordinances between 100 and 1000 times more stringent than what the FCC enacted as federal law back in the late 1990s.

    Those unfounded proposed regulations have harmed amateur radio, but would have stifled the massive rollout of wireless networks over the past 20 years, not to mention what it would have done to Broadcasting if these groups had prevailed. I've been involved in RF safety cases both before and after the regulations. The good thing now is that FCC licenses and others have a baseline to support our station safe operation, as long as we have supporting evidence that we are in compliance.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2019
    KE9OL likes this.
  14. N0AMY

    N0AMY Ham Member QRZ Page

    it must not be too dangerous.. the guy is 75 and is still going strong..
     
  15. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    AC0OB likes this.

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