Cell Towers on School Property (Page 2)

LOL!  I love those stories. they are classic!

Poor Tesla.

Not according to this article.  Gotta love bored MIT students (original study).

Poor Elephant...

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104

Well here are some rough numbers:

Cellular tower power:  100 kiloWatts

Cell phone:  4 Watts.

Cellphone held up to your head: 2 Watts (equals ~half the radiated power)

Cellular tower 100m away = 0.8 Watts (since a human body is roughly one one-millionth the area of the sphere whose centre is the tower's antenna.

This is not engineering work, and I am not responsible for these numbers, even if you take them to high places.  They have many simplifications like isotropic radiation, which is incorrect because almost all antennas are directional.

But what this means is that, while the cell phone is stronger, the cell tower is more constant.  

Personally, I would be more afraid of the amount of radiation your children's children will have to face.

Difference between the two 

Is it?  You sure?

They will be out at recess for 30-45 minutes, right?  Rest of the time in a building, which I'm sure will have an minimizing affect on the RF.

And isn't, with current smart phones, a constant output?  in their pants?  In their hands?  in their backpacks?

You sure cell phone exposure isn't more constant?

Try 100 watts not kilowatts...this is a cell tower not an AM radio station.  Your reulting numbers may be right....didn't do the math.

That's not much power.  Is that right?

at 100 feet, that's .0008 watts, or .8mW.

100watts/4(3.14)*(100ft)^2

So to update,

I looked at Wikipeda, found that certain towers emit at 80dBm.  Not sure whether they are cell phone, tv, radio or what.  80dBm is 10^8 times greater than a miliWatt.  That's how I got 100kW.  Could be exaggerated, but I might as well pick the largest strength for comparison.

I also made the presumption that cell phones are not transmitting at full power for all the time.  Sure, they are connected to wifi, but I am guessing that requires less power than connecting while talking.

So while the debate could go on about the numbers, I was just trying to illustrate that towers at a distance have only a fraction of their power hit you, whereas cell phones have a lot of their transmitting power absorbed.

Back to the OP, it's hard to say.  I don't believe that there is no effect on the human body, though I don't know enough biology to go deeper into that question, but just take a little closer look to see if there indeed is an effect.  For instance, my province proposed banning Wifi in schools because of reported headaches.  Cell phones held close to your ear are worse than the wifi transmitters.  You get the idea.

therein lies the problem. You can't get Biologists and Engineers together for a study.  Engineers want absolutes.  Biology is not an absolute science because everyone reacts differently to the effects.

But I think there needs to be some 3rd party review of things like this to determine harm/no harm. 

That's why population statistics are used.  Any biologist worth their salt would make certain that any study done is done with a reasonable sample, a repeatable study, and minimal variables. 

No matter what the population size, the engineers wouldn't sign off on it.

I agree.  That's why the study posted on page 1 was flawed.  28 people and they had no controls over stuff like diet, environment, etc.  There would need to be a big effort to study this to find the answer.  But if SFSC is right, there's no need to study it because we've had that kind of impact since houses got power. 

I don't think that locating cell towers a block or two further from schools is going to ruin the cell industry.  And I'd like to see a conservative approach to selecting cell tower locations, rather than deciding to place a cell tower next to or on top of a school because nobody has managed to prove an adverse effect from doing so.  This isn't my kids school, but their schools could easily be next.

For those of you who laugh at the prospect of any risk from the placement of a cell tower directly adjacent to a school building, if it turns out that you are wrong about your position, are you willing to take your foil down to the hospital where some impacted kid is getting treated for something like leukemia and tell him that wearing this tin-foil hat will help with the healing process?

If it's a matter of additional funding, I think I'd run that past the parents of the school first.

Yea, the thing to remember about cell towers is that, unlike a tv transmitter, the cell tower is both a sender AND a receiver.  So it doesn't help much to have a big transmitter on the cell tower to reach a long distance, if the cell phone on the side of the conversation has only a small transmitter.  I think the newer digital 4G towers have an even lower power, resulting in an even closer spacing to get coverage.

Well, my point had nothing to do with where the towers are, but the basic premise, and the ultimate effect that misguided (although well intentioned) laws and lawsuits can have. 

Dup

Maximum allowed power is 500 watts. Average power in urban areas in 100 watts or less. Actual radiation reaching someone 100 feet away is ~4mW. FCC power limits for continuous exposure are 660-1000mW per square cm. So you're WAY under what is deemed safe. There's noting in the medical literature supporting (but there is some showing no correlation) of cancer and proximity to cellular towers.

The real risk is in the phone itself. A number of studies have shown statistical correlation to cell phone use and a doubling in the risk of brain cancer. You can find the journal articles by searching PubMed.

No kidding.  My dad worked for Dow Corning.  One REALLY BAD study concluded that silicone implants were causing all sorts of bad things.  Of course, the study didn't control for things like, oh, SMOKING!!   Company court-ordered to pay something like $400M.  Nearly killed his company, lots of people lost their jobs, and his retirement took a serious hit.

To the topic at hand:   I would venture a guess that you are much more likely to be harmed by that tower falling on you than you are by the radiation it emits.