5G WIFI on oscilloscope. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 02:23:19 am
content: helloI wonder, how easy would it be to pick up an energy reading of WIFI and mobile phone frequencies in a local area on a scope?Are there any that can do this, are they very expensive? can the frequencies be converted and displayed on a cheaper scope?probably a daft question as there is likely an app that can help display some info on the use in the area?Is anyone here concerned about WIFI? Do you let your kids use ipads or do you use a cable to a laptop or tower PC when you can?Thanks for your input. : )

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 02:39:00 am
content: You would need a *really* expensive scope to do that. A spectrum analyzer is much better for this sort of thing (and will probably have a 21.4 MHz IF out that will be much more amenable to inspecting time domain).And, due to the nature of wifi, you'll probably want a spectrum analyzer with real time capability (or, if you don't care about calibration, a decent SDR that covers the 5.8 GHz ISM band and offers some real time bandwidth).:

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 03:01:52 am
content: Thank you very much,i see that 5G is up to 80ghz..So my old 1980's Tektronix analogue scope wont be much good : )I wonder if Dave has a unit that can do this? I wonder if he lets his kids use ipads or a LAN cable?There is lots of concern across the internet regards the health of people, insects and other animals.Yet there are huge smart phone towers near nurseries/schools.It has not been tested fully as it would take generations to understand the effects on reproduction.I have read it effects eggs more than sperm.I hope not to annoy anyone. i just wondered what electronics experts feel on this.Thank you.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 03:28:16 am
content: Oh, you mean 5G as in the next gen cellular technology with all the femtocells all over the place. Well, I don't have any opinion either way, but you're going to need some expensive test gear to work with those bands. If you do want to learn more about the type of test equipment needed, I highly recommend following Shahriar (who, IIRC, is a member of this forum and conducts research professionally in these areas):https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSignalPathBlogHe's one of my favorite youtubers for his in depth videos covering some very high end test equipment, repair of older but still viable test equipment, and more.

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 03:32:47 am
content: Thank you very much for the link : )

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 06:12:40 am
content: https://teledynelecroy.com/100ghz/Here you go, starting at only $900,000

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 07:11:29 am
content: Quote from: harps on May 23, 2019, 03:01:52 amWell, I think it is all a load of bollocks!RF is RF, & there is nothing magical about the frequencies used in 5G technology.Non-technical people hear the word "microwave" & they automatically connect it in their minds with "microwave ovens", as if microwave RF possessed some inherent "cooking." ability.This is not the case---- RF of any frequency can be used to heat objects, microwaves just allow the use of physically convenient sized devices.If we were 100ft tall, we would probably cook our food with "HF ovens"!We have lived in a "sea" of RF, for "pushing on a century", now, with no statistically valid corellation between exposure to RF & any form of illness.People believe that prior to the development of Radio, we lived in a pristine, RF free environment, but that is not the case.We evolved in a situation where frequent high energy lightning strikes occurred.These produce massive amounts of RF energy over a wide range of frequencies

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 08:59:44 am
content: Quote from: harps on May 23, 2019, 02:23:19 amThe thing that always leaps out, every time I read about someone who "is concerned" about RF, is that they never mention themany orders of magnitudedifference between the transmit power of WiFi vs a mobile phone signal. They're always lumped together, implying that if one of them were powerful enough to justify "concern", then the other must be as well.Unfortunately it's all but impossible to get this point across. When someone has decided they're "concerned", I don't think I've ever once heard them change their mind in the light of verifiable, quantitative science fact.The whole "phone mast near schools" argument is probably the worst possible argument for "concern", because a phone mast near to where people are using their phones activelyreducesRF exposure. A phone being used a long way from a mast transmits at a relatively high power in order to deliver a usable signal at the mast, whereas if the mast is nearby, that transmit power can be dramatically reduced.Bear in mind, RF signal strength reduces with the square of the distance from the transmitter, so you can very easily compare and contrast the signal strength from a mast 1km away, a mast 100m away, and a phone 1cm away. Which works out strongest, and by how much? How many timeslesspower can the phone use, if it must transmit 100m vs 1km?

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 09:56:08 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on May 23, 2019, 08:59:44 amTotally, but they don't listen, they hear 'radiation' and it's bad, they don't know or even want to know the details, it's like anti-vaxers, someone draws a tenuous link and they jump on it to justify their lack of understanding because 'it's common sense innit'I'd also change the last line of your reply,Quote from: AndyC_772 on May 23, 2019, 08:59:44 am

author: Neganur
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 09:57:23 am
content: Regarding scope & RF, you could use a signal generator and mixer to down convert the RF to something you can see on a scope.Very similar to how you use an FM radio to tune to different radio stations (and your ear is the oscilloscope).Concern about WiFi...I like to compare it to motorcycles. Often people think that loud = fast. A whole lot of anxiety and hand-waving as reasoning.Don't put the antenna where it doesn't belongand even then, with the powers that are allowed in consumer devices you mostly heat the tissue locally.Highpowers of RF can definitely harm the body. What is considered high power?If you're really interested in how radio waves affect the human body in terms of how much energy is absorbed into the body, you could read an article on so-called Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) . Your government should have info material available online. Here is some material from Finland:link.The linked document lists SAR values of 2 W/kg as heating sourrounding tissue by 0.3 degrees Celsius. US limits for mobile phones regarded as safe are I think 1.6 W/kg taken over a volume containing 1g of tissue. Note, that there are different limits for whole body, head and extremities (arms/legs). Local exposure is allowed to be higher than the limits for the whole body.An iPhone 6 SAR values can be found here:link

author: TheUnnamedNewbie
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 10:01:39 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on May 23, 2019, 07:11:29 amThere is also the matter of losses - in order to heat with RF energy, said RF energy must be absorbed and dissipated through loss - either conductive (electrons moving around and bumping into stuff) or dielectric (molecules in a material trying to align themselves with the fields and as a result generating heat through friction).On top of that you really want your wavelength to be small enough that it interacts property with whatever you try to heat.One of the things with high frequencies that /is/ true is that higher frequencies have a smaller skin depth. As a result, if the material you are trying to heat is sufficiently conductive, the fields can't penetrate deeply and any energy absorbed will be more 'concentrated' to the surface, potentially causing more apparent heating.I don't think 5G is seriously still considering anything past Ka bands.I happen to work at a lab that does a lot of very high frequency stuff, and thus I do have access to the kind of toys that can do it.Scopes that can do WiFi (2.4 and 5 GHz) bands cost a few tens of thousands of dollars. Scopes that can do Ka band wifi cost few hundreds of thousands of dollars. Scope that can do 60 GHz WiFi costs about half a million USD, and a scope that can go all the way up to E-bands costs north of a million.Spectrum analyzers that can do it are a bit cheaper (ie, just a few hunderd thousdand dollars).Quote from: Neganur on May 23, 2019, 09:57:23 amTrue, but this can be difficult if you want somewhat wide bandwidth and good rejection.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 02:14:17 pm
content: Quote from: harps on May 23, 2019, 02:23:19 amif you're mean new generation 5G with 80 GHz frequency, it will be very hard. If you want to do it directly with oscilloscope, it is very-very expensive. So, you're needs a lot of money for such equipmentQuote from: harps on May 23, 2019, 02:23:19 amyes, you can find example above, such kind of oscilloscope from Lecroy has a price which starts from about 900'000 USD.Quote from: harps on May 23, 2019, 02:23:19 amyou can convert it down to more usable frequency with some down converter, but it will cost you also too much of money.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 02:22:43 pm
content: Say you're allowed to use such oscilloscope, and yes, it shows the signal as expected like you're waving your phone or wifi devices in front of the probe.Now the real question .. what are you going to do with it ?Trying to feel and try really-really hard "placebo-eing" (is this the right word ?) your brain that you can feel the wave, and suddenly you can feel some part of your body starting to feel sick ?

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 10:57:32 pm
content: interesting range of responses, thanks for the links and info.Someone mentioned that the large communication tower I referred to , (which is just a few meters distance from a nursery), where they care for youngsters, would be a positive thing, as the toddlers could get better reception for their mobile communications.However, the children and babies do not need super fast downloads...actually they do not use wifi or telephones.yet there is a 3 story( 3 level) tall tower just outside the nursery.Cigarettes , asbestos , lead in fuel..all safe at one time, but thanks to people who are concerned , the truthwas eventually heard and changes made.WIFI is important to some people but maybe we can go about this all in a better way?video ::" Hundreds of Respected Scientists Sound The Alarm With MAJOR WARNING About 5G Health Effects!!! "https://youtu.be/of8ngbxDuxw?t=97

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 11:26:46 pm
content: This doctor says living near a smart-phone tower is harmful and it is proven.So why are children subjected to an extra large tower?I can't post links now for some reason, so here is the end of the you tube url/watch?v=1Qt5B39LB7c

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 11:30:33 pm
content: All about the innovation and money, No health investigation!here is the end of a youtube url, as I cant post links./watch?v=hhchZJSiPdY

author: Neganur
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 24, 2019, 12:51:41 am
content: uff, what does it matter if a cell tower is next to a nursery or an elderly care home, if it obeys the regulations then it is very safe.How many meters is "a few meters" by the way - do you have a more precise number? Because the cellphone next to your ear or in your pocket will cause the strongest exposure to RF energy around you by far.Please don't be afraid of cell phone towers that are "extra large" just because they look ugly or intimidating (painted red of all the colours even, hehe)The more of them there are around us, the less energy is needed to guarantee good reception.The reason it is tall is, amongst others, to increase the distance between humans and itself (double the distance -> 4 times less energy exposure)RF isn't new, and very extensive research has been conducted to find out just how much RF energy exactly is safe. So far it most definitely is not proven to cause cancer.I'd be cautious to trust "news" from youtube. Especially if they find it necessary to use all capital letters.

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2019, 02:55:53 am
content: You're trying to educate yourself, which is nice. However, make sure to actually look up valid and peer reviewed studies, for examplehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253668/(and articles that cite it). To cite the abstract, "Results of these studies to date give no consistent or convincing evidence of a causal relation between RF exposure and any adverse health effect. On the other hand, the studies have too many deficiencies to rule out an association." In other words, none of the examined studies have shown any evidence of a RF causing adverse health effects, but they're also not comprehensive enough to say that RF affects it.I encourage you to do more research, read the studies, think about possible conflicts of interest and check whether they were published in a reputable journal.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2019, 07:03:26 am
content: Actually really tall towers LOWER close in exposure at ground level...Because antenna designers are generally not stupid, and there is no point in putting significant power into the ground at the base of the tower (Waste of expensive RF power), so you design the sector antenna to have a pattern that is wedge shaped and angled down just very slightly, the objective being broadly equal field strength over as much ground as you can manage.Seriously, that preschool is in a NULL in the pattern from that tower.Lets do some sums:100W (Which is a LOT for a modern cell, you only see them that big out in rural areas where phone density is LOW) into a 20dBi antenna = 10kW EIRP (Sounds like a lot, but just means that in the strongest part of the pattern the far field strength is that same as it would be from a 10kW transmitter that radiated equally in all directions).Now that 10kW spreads out over the surface of a sphere of area 4PiR^2, so at say 10M from the antenna (in the direction of maximum radiation, mind you), that 10kW is spread over an area of ~1200m^2, so about 8.3W/M^2 which would be uncomfortably high were it not for the fact that that antenna pattern puts that peak way up in the air, there being no point in aiming that power at the ground close to the tower.@100M you are talking 90mW/M^2 (again in maximum radiation direction).Note that units matter here, the values in W/cm^2 are 10,000 times lower, and the values in mW/cm^2 are 10 times lower, so be a bit careful there.Now lets take the tower away and make your cell phone really shout to be heard by a far away tower:Cell phone power output is generally somewhere in the 1W region at full song (they throttle back if the tower is near), and they are close enough to your skull that the far field assumptions don't really apply, but lets pretend (because the maths for the other is gnarly and it will do for a rough estimate).Power density = 1W / (4*Pi *R^2), and lets set R at say 5cm (0.05m), then power density at 5cm, 1W is 33W/m^2 Which is why more base stations actually lowers RF exposure....Note that more, lower powered base stations lower exposure even if you are NOT a mobile phone user because smaller cells means less power all round.Counter intuitive I know, but that don't make it wrong.Regards, Dan.

author: mayor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2019, 08:59:37 am
content: Quote from: harps on May 23, 2019, 11:26:46 pmAnd you'll find similar videos of other "doctors" stating that vaccines cause autism. Read up on ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation.Oh also, research Flat Earth :-)

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2019, 09:22:59 am
content: thanks for your posts especially the effort put into the mathsmakes user "mayor"'s flat earth comment look even more pathetic.20min.37sec is interesting on this video.https://youtu.be/zLv_u4asUqk?t=1234

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2019, 09:32:08 am
content: this clip is quite disturbing.i have cued the time to 24min .21sec hopefully it should take you to that time.https://youtu.be/zLv_u4asUqk?t=1461

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2019, 06:15:31 pm
content: Quote from: harps on May 25, 2019, 09:32:08 amOne generally learns nothing interesting from congressional hearings, they exist mainly to produce sound bytes for the next campaign season, and always produce more heat then light on any given subject.In this, like so much else, there are a very noisy, rather strident group who are good at producing doubt, and (generally) a MUCH bigger group of real subject matter experts who can at best say things like ' there is no convincing evidence' or 'after accounting for the confounding factors in the study no convincing evidence was found of causation", which is all anyone giving a study a fair shout can ever really say. But to a layman "We haven't found anything" is not the same thing as "We KNOW there is nothing to be found", and any proper scientist will at most say only the first.XKCD had (as usual) useful things to say:https://xkcd.com/882/https://xkcd.com/1478/Personally I think that consuming water is a far bigger risk factor for cancer, I mean very few people who stop drinking any water wind up dying of cancer, even if they have TWO mobile phones and live next to GCHQ....73 Dan.

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2019, 09:48:45 pm
content: Water does not contain hexafluorosilicic acid *anywhere*. Claiming potable water causes cancer is unverifiable at best, but I assure you in the vast majority of cases water quality is tightly controlled. Like I said before, educate yourself from actual reputable sources. These are definitely not random Congress excerpts from a Youtube channel with all caps titles.Please take all that conspiracy theory garbage and throw it out of your brain before you hurt yourself or others. Fluorination is not harmful, non-ionizing radiation is non-harmful as long as you don't get exposed to kilowatts of it.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2019, 10:44:20 pm
content: Quote from: harps on May 25, 2019, 09:34:00 pmI believe sarcasm was intended by context and it clearly went straight over your head.On topic, however, let me give you some advice. I will say there is absolutely no problem with entertaining what are labeled "conspiracy theories" (please do a little research on the provenance of that terminology...it's rather interesting). However, it pays to be skeptical abouteverythingyou hear and apply critical thinking. Judicious application of Occam's (and Hanlon's) Razor go a long way. Plenty of folks on both sides of many discussions these days are trying to sell you a bill of goods. Just because a headline on CNN starts with "Scientists Say..." doesn't mean it's true.

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 12:05:13 am
content: space X just launched 60 broadband satellites.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48289204with 1000's more to goyoutube search Why does SpaceX want to put 4,000 satellites into orbitwatch?v=zgvoZgv-jm8

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 02:16:12 am
content: The OP is another following in a long line of people who obstensibly "ask a question", then engage the respondents in an ongoing argument, bringing up suspect "authorities" to back their obviously predetermined position.Far be it from me to use the "T" word, but if it walks like a duck, & quacks like a duck........

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 02:23:35 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on May 26, 2019, 02:16:12 amSometimes I wonder if these types are really AI chatbots someone is using to stir the pot on forums. Doesn't matter what forum, they always seem to show up.

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 02:40:50 am
content: Someone who is very worried by how people trust governments and regulation authorities.I care about all of us.WIFI and cell phones are useful, but we need public debates on where we may be heading with 5G. The pros and cons.And encourage people to use a cable when they can! That is very important.

author: GregDunn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 04:16:34 am
content: Quote from: harps on May 26, 2019, 02:06:55 amExcept they wereneversafe, and as soon as actual peer-reviewed research was performed, they wereshownto be unsafe. You're using examples of advertising and "received wisdom" which were shown to be wrong by actual research, to put forth the concept that conspiracy theorists are wiser than research scientists. That's not only a canard, it defeats your original point.I, too, am waiting to see if the "T" word applies.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 02:23:42 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on May 23, 2019, 07:11:29 amYears ago when I was a kid I visited an HF broadcast link site somewhere on a freezing moor. The engineers tended to two big HF transmitters - one on the air and the other on hot standby, just in case. When the book said propagation conditions were about to change, they'd re-tune the standby transmitter to the new frequency and peak it into a dummy load until it was time to go live, then switch in the aerial and come up on the new frequency. The standby became the prime transmitter, and they swapped over like that several times a day.The output coupling coils of these valved (tubed) transmitters were big - generally two to eight or so turns of silver plated 3" copper tube, wound about five feet in diameter. They were mounted on little railway bogies inside the Faraday cage that surrounded the output stage and moved in and out using a little winding handle on the front of the case. Each of the transmitters had a small, rather stained plank of wood forming a shelf across its middle - clearly something that had been rigged up, rather than being part of the original spec. I asked what it was for. The chief engineer told me that there were no cooking facilities at the station so on cold nights they'd put a couple of Cornish pasties on the plank before tuning up. When it was time to switch the transmitter to air, there was a well-rehearsed procedure of shutting the transmitter down, removing the (by now piping hot) pasties, switching the HF output to the aerial and putting the power on again. Then they'd have a nice hot pastie each for lunch."Aha!" said I, "amacrowave oven!"I was never invited back.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 03:49:44 pm
content: It sounds to me like you have already decided there is reason for concern and are seeking confirmation bias, hoping that someone here will say something supporting this concern that you can cherry pick.In reality you will find that no sane engineer worries about RF from wifi and mobile phones, even the vast majority of us that have no ties whatsoever to that industry.

author: harps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 03:55:09 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 26, 2019, 03:49:44 pmI felt wrong not asking. I felt I had to ask around.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 06:07:45 pm
content: Quote from: harps on May 26, 2019, 03:55:09 pmOk so you asked around and people told you it's not an issue so then you started posting a bunch of BS. Are you actually looking for an answer or are you just looking for an excuse to spam the forum with bogus information?

author: mikerj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 08:01:31 pm
content: Quote from: harps on May 25, 2019, 09:32:08 amPlease don't perform your "research" via YouTube. This is why we have flat earth believers and anti-vaxers.

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 08:56:31 pm
content: I tried to argue with him in good faith at first, but considering he keeps posting YT links I'm pretty sure this is a terminal case.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 11:28:57 pm
content: Listen to this Amp Hour for talk about the "dangers" of 5G from an actual 5G hardware designer.https://theamphour.com/430-shahriar-discusses-5g/

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 26, 2019, 11:32:49 pm
content: I have deleted the posts about water fluoridation, that has no place on this forum. 5G and Wifi etc does of course, but please keep it on topic.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 02:33:45 am
content: There is of course an actual "danger" of smarphones and tablets but has nothing to do with RF. The things are addictive and people playing with them while driving has become an epidemic that at least around here has got to the point where as many people are killed by distracted driving as by drunk driving. It's easy to see the behavior just about anywhere you go outside, nearly everyone is like a zombie glued to their smartphone. If I had kids I don't think I'd let them have one until they're old enough to get a job and buy it themselves.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 03:49:13 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 26, 2019, 03:49:44 pmWiFi, no, for obvious power level square of the distance drops.Mobile phones, potentially yes, I'd be concerned if I was on the phone all day and had a powerful Rf transmitter touching my skull for several hours a day. Tissue heating at those distances and powers is real.

author: mayor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 10:32:58 am
content: Quote from: harps on May 25, 2019, 09:22:59 amI am calling out the fact that you are behaving in the same way as these conspiracy theorists do. Posting YT videos under the guise of genuine concern or 'research'. Everyone else here seems to have picked up on it. Why can't you see it yourself?Don't bother responding, I'm done feeding.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 11:21:18 am
content: Quote from: KaneTW on May 25, 2019, 09:48:45 pmThe point is that according to statistics water does cause cancer!You will find that pretty much every person who has died from cancer has consumed large amounts of water recently while you will not be able to find a case where people who have not had any water for a few days have died from cancer. There is a VERY strong statistical correlation between water and cancer. But does it mean that water causes cancer? Of course not! Correlation does not automatically mean causation, it just means some form of causation is possible.Another easy to understand statistical blunder is if you compare the number of traffic accidents caused by people who have a driving license versus people who don't. You will find that people who have a driving license are WAY more likely to cause a traffic accident. So people who have a driving license are bad drivers then?

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 12:59:15 pm
content: That's why I wrote it doesn't *cause* cancer

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 01:31:29 pm
content: Seems to correlate well with **Death** from Cancer however.... There is a proportion of the population, who, if they have had any water in the last three or four days, die from cancer.Remove the water and the Cancer deaths go away.I wonder if we can get proposition 65 amended to include water on these grounds?Regards, Dan.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 01:56:22 pm
content: Wait ... how about oxygen we breath in ? .... Guess its time to stop taking oxygen ...

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 05:10:03 pm
content: Quote from: dmills on May 24, 2019, 07:03:26 amJust to get some relation: spending time in direct sunlight = 1000W/m²Ok, different wavelength, different skin depth... but we´re talking conversion to heat.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 10:42:39 pm
content: I wonder if those against cell towers were also against TV stations? In terms of total transmit power, a single TV station is equal to on the order of a hundred cell towers.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2019, 11:01:30 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on May 27, 2019, 10:42:39 pmOr AM radio. Many markets have one 50 kW AM talk station. My local talk radio station is on top of a mountain and they blast the full 50 kW omnidirectionally during the day, but revert to a directional antenna at night.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2019, 05:32:10 am
content: There is also the massive WLW transmitter that had 500kW of power, an interesting read and the place is now sort of a museum.http://www.ominous-valve.com/wlw.htmlThere must have been some areas near that place that really got a ton of RF power. Likely to the point of being able to light a small lamp if you would have built a large LC tank and tuned it to there frequency.But yeah unless you lived close to something like this im pretty sure a cell phone is exposing you to many times more RF power just because of how close it is. But then again at 700KHz human beings probably make pretty bad antennas because we are too small while 1GHz and up absorbs in tissue pretty well.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2019, 07:27:00 pm
content: I think the fear comes largely from the terminology ad someone already mentioned. People hear "microwave" and freak out, having absolutely no concept of the fact that it's the immense (relatively) field strength that heats food hot enough to cook it rather than some magical property of microwave radiation.Likewise the word "radiation" creates fear like no other, I remember someone fretting about the "laser radiation" decal on a CD player years ago. Yeah, light is radiation, it radiates, but the average person has no idea that what most people think of when they hear "radiation" is the specific class of ionizing radiation. Similar to the reason they dropped "nuclear" from the original NMRI and now just call it MRI. Clueless people didn't understand that "nuclear" refers to the nucleus of a water molecule and not anything to do with radioactivity.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2019, 08:47:16 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 27, 2019, 03:49:13 amHeating is not the single way, how RF affects human body and health.Just looked for some info and stumbled upon an interesting article about wifi and health.It may be interested for someoneWi-Fi is an important threat to human healthThe key point here is VGCCA -Voltage-Gated Calcium Channel Activation.For example, see also:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780531/I'm not obsessed with conspiracy and know a lot about physics behind RF EMF and pretty calm to RF exposure. Some time ago I even experimented with HF transmitting on magnetic loop antenna with very high E and H field strength, which is much higher than recommended level. Now I know much more about these things and more careful with it, especially if RF power is more than 1-2 WIt seems that wifi may be really not so safe for health, especially if it works 24/7 near you...So, there may be a real issue behind these rumors about wifi and health