English Hippies Want Local Wi-Fi Network Turned Off

Well we should know by now that radio waves are safe as baby's pablum, right? Afterall, RF networks have been in place for a number of years now, and no one has died to death instantly. I mean, everyone feels okay, and feeling good should be good enough. That's scientific enough for me. Bring it on! Let's throw all caution to the wind, because my body and overall health can take it. What's good for Motorola and Ericsson is good enough for me. We're guinea pigs, you know.

I wonder if there's some sort of difference between wireless internet and cel phone signals...  I'm assuming cel phones have been in use in Glastonbury for some years now, like nearly everywhere else.  What about radio and tv signals?  Are those affecting people, too?

"...and feeling good should be good enough" for me an Bobby McGee, it is.

 "What about radio and tv signals?  Are those affecting people, too?"

Deffinately.  Studies have shown that people subjected to CBC radio 1's music selection have a higher rate of suicide than the general population, and former viewers of Mike Duffy on CTV feel thinner than the general population.

I talked to my sweetie (who's a techie media guy) about this and his position is two-fold.

1. The hippies are out to lunch.

But, 

2. If we can imagine that a non-wifi environment emits about 5 billion thingies per second going through our bodies (radio waves, cel phone waves, tv waves, etc. More if you're in a big city, less if you aren't), then we can look at things like increased cancer rates that can be linked to this kind of low-level radiation, other health/illness trends etc, for the last 50-100 or so years, ever since we began to purchase and own all manner of these emitters right in our own homes, in the West.

So then a wifi environment will increase that to, let's say 5.5 or 6 billion thingies per second. 

We could have a debate about the effect of the 5 billion thingies, as well as the relative increase to 5.5 to 6 billion. But it is an increase nonetheless. If one isn't already concerned about the 5 million, it seems kooky to get all up in arms about the increase.

If I haven't explained this properly let me know. 

Quote:

 So, in the end, I say relax and have a smoke.

That's your answer to everything, isn't it Tommy?   

"That's your answer to everything, isn't it Tommy?"

Well, you know as well as I that there are some complaining about the wi fi that are smoking, drinking enough to scar their livers, and sending their cholesterol over the top with a butter soaked crumpet and other life endangering habits the English engage in, like steak and kidney pie.

Seriously, we have become very poor risk assessors in this society. And if you don't believe me, read the crop circles. They never lie.

I was going to make much the same point that Maysie and Fidel made - our lives are filled with RF and Microwaves and all sorts of weird shit. The increase seems negligible. I thought that one way of proving this to the hippies is turning off the WI-FI without telling them (surely they aren't using it to connect to the Net 'cause that would be hypocritical and we all know that hippies are never hypocrites) and then revealing two weeks after the fact that there has been no WI-FI in town so maybe their problems are caused by something else.

I would assume that there are no cars in Glastonbury because there is empirical data that car fumes do hurt kids and give people cancer (see note on hippie-hypocracy)

My guess would be that the folks who are complaining about the local wifi network are probably calling their town councillors on their mobile or cordless telephones.

Each one of these handsets is a microwave or near-microwave radio transmitter that one holds an inch or two from your brain.   There have been some studies on this ... nothing conclusive yet...that telephone handsets generate "hotspots" in your brain...and I think that's probably not all that great a thing.

My understanding is that things start to get problematic with any handheld radio that operates on a frequency above about 400 MHz. ...in otherwords just about anything these days.

But, the "NIMBY" types will usually complain about cellphone towers in their neighbourhood...and talk about alleged health effects...when it's really that they just don't like the look of the thing...and are worried about "property values".

The taller the cell tower the better...both healthwise...because it gets the RF further away from you...and in terms of boosting the range of the signal and creating better cellphone reception.

In Toronto, the wifi transmitters in the downtown area are located on top of the street lighting...it's extremely low power and I can't see any problem with it...unless you decide to build your house on top of a light pole. :)

radiorahim wrote:

 In Toronto, the wifi transmitters in the downtown area are located on top of the street lighting...it's extremely low power and I can't see any problem with it...unless you decide to build your house on top of a light pole. :)

So what you're saying is Toronto's wifi system is anti-squirrel? 

Having spent piles of money over the years trying to evict Sciurus carolinensis from my roof, I'd say that Toronto's wifi system being "anti-squirrel" is probably a good thing ;)

As for Dr. Devra Davis' item on Marketplace, I'd say she's concentrating on the real problem...which is the handsets.    Don't think of it as just  being "cellphones"...the problem also exists with all handheld cordless phones...such as the type you carry around your house.   It's also a problem with most "walkie-talkie" type radios too.

Now here's the rub with folks who don't like cell towers in their neighbourhoods.   The higher up you can get your cell tower, the lower the power output you need on your handset to get into the cellsite.

 If you can lower the power output of the transmitter on the handset, you can somewhat lesson the degree to which your brain gets zapped by RF.

So if you have some NIMBY types in your neighbourhood complaining about cell towers, tell them that you want the thing to be really really tall.

What is that incredibly 'dirty' coil that ruins RF reception for km around? I remember reading about this in the Scientific American DIY pages 45 years ago. And i know that civil security civil servants are always roaming around our cities with their rotating-antenna equipped trucks to catch any whiff of such interference (easily achieved with a moving slinky antenna)