Cell phone towers emit signals in a "flower petal" pattern around the tower. This 360-degree radius around the tower is called a "cell" and this is what the term "cell" in cell phone means. (5) When your phone is in a "cell" you get good reception and when it isn't in a "cell" you get poor reception. So, for a cell phone company to provide complete coverage cell phone towers and antenna towers must be positioned all across the country so that the "cells" overlap. You can begin to see what a huge infrastructure needs to be created to provide complete cell phone coverage. That's why cell phone towers and antenna towers are so prevalent. Furthermore, that's why these antennas are installed in so many places like rooftops, fire stations, schools and churches. This is what is necessary for complete coverage.
Studies Show Adverse Health Effects From Cell Phone Towers
If you aren't sure that cell phone towers and masts are harmful the following study summaries should convince you. Below are listed six studies that have shown significant adverse health effects on people living near cell phone towers. According to Dr. Grahame Blackwell "these are the only studies known that specifically consider the effects of masts on people. All six studies show clear and significant ill-health effects. There are no known studies relating to health effects of masts that do not show such ill-health effects." (6)
1. Santini et al. found significant health problems in people living within 300 meters of a cell phone base station or tower. The recommendation was made from the study that cell phone base stations should not be placed closer than 300 meters to populated areas. Pathol Biol (Paris) 2002; 50: 369-373.
2. A Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research study entitled, "Effects of Global Communications System Radio-Frequency Fields On Well Being and Cognitive Function of Human Subjects With and Without Subjective Complaints" found significant effects on well being including headaches, muscle fatigue, pain, and dizziness from tower emissions well below the "safety" level.
3. Gerd, Enrique, Manuel, Ceferino and Claludio conducted a Spanish study called "The Microwave Syndrome" and found adverse health effects from those living near two cell phone base stations. The health effects included fatigue, a tendency toward depression, sleeping disorders, difficulty in concentration and cardiovascular problems.
4. From an Israeli study published in the International Journal of Cancer Prevention, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 2004, Wolf and Wolf reported a fourfold increase in the incidence of cancer in people living within 350 meters of a cell phone tower as compared to the Israeli general population. They also reported a tenfold increase specifically among women.
5. In the Naila Study from Germany, November 2004, five medical doctors collaborated to assess the risk to people living near a cell phone tower. The retrospective study was taken from patient case histories between 1994 and 2004 from those who had lived during the past ten years at a distance up to 400 meters from the tower site. The results showed that the proportion of newly developed cancer cases was significantly higher in those patients living within the 400-meter distance and that the patients became ill on average eight years earlier. In the years 1999 to 2004, after five years of operation of the transmitting tower, the relative risk of getting cancer had trebled for residents of the area in the proximity of the installation compared to the inhabitants of Naila outside the area.
6. An Austrian Study released in May 2005, showed that radiation from a cell phone tower at a distance of 80 meters causes significant changes of the electrical currents in the brains of test subjects. All test subjects indicated they felt unwell during the radiation and some reported being seriously ill. According to the scientists doing the study, this is the first worldwide proof of significant changes of the electrical currents in the brain, as measured by EEG, by a cell phone base station at a distance of 80 meters. Subjects reported symptoms such as buzzing in the head, tinnitus, palpitations of the heart, lightheadedness, anxiety, shortness of breath, nervousness, agitation, headache, heat sensation and depression. According to scientists this is the first proof that electrical circuits in the brain are significantly affected by a cell phone tower. The distance in this study was a mere 80 meters.
Two-time Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Gerald Hyland, a physicist, had this to say about cell phone towers. "Existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate. Quite justifiably, the public remains skeptical of attempts by governments and industry to reassure them that all is well, particularly given the unethical way in which they often operate symbiotically so as to promote their own vested interests."
Dr. Bruce Hocking did a study in Syndey, Australia, of children living near TV and FM broadcast towers, which by the way, are very similar to cell phone towers. He found that these children had more than twice the rate of leukemia as children living more than seven miles away from these towers.
Results in yet another recent study (7) conducted on inhabitants living near or under a mobile phone base station antenna yielded the following prevalence of neuropsychiatric complaints: headache (23.5%), memory changes (28.2%), dizziness (18.8%), tremors (9.4%), depressive symptoms (21.7%), and sleep disturbances
(23.5%). In this study the participants were given a neurobehavioral test battery measuring such things as problem solving, visuomotor speed, attention and emory. Symptoms of exposed inhabitants were significantly higher than control groups.
Furthermore, Europe's top environmental watchdog group, European Environment Agency (EEA), is calling for immediate action to reduce exposure to mobile phone masts. EEA suggests action to reduce exposure immediately to vulnerable groups such as children.
The development of brain tumors in staff members working in a building in Melbourne, Australia, prompted the closing of the top floors of the building. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology is housed in the building. Seven staff members were diagnosed with brain tumors and five of the seven worked on the top floor. A cell phone antenna is located on the roof of the building. (8)
The Orange phone company in England is being forced to remove its mast tower on a building in Bristol, England. The removal is a result of a five-year effort by residents and local authorities to have the mast removed. Cancer rates in the building, which has become known internationally as the "Tower of Doom," have soared to ten times the national average for the 110 residents living there. The two masts sitting on the roof, one owned by Orange and the other by Vodafone, were installed in 1994. Vodafone has refused the remove its mast. (9)
Back in the 1800's there was just a telegraph where messages were sent as a simple code. At that time reproducing ?voice' was unheard of. However, by 1871 Antonio Meucci was on the track of reproducing ?voice' and filed a patent caveat in the US patent office describing it as ?communication of voice between two people by wire'. However, he is not a man of money and in the end he lets the patent caveat lapse. In the several years following there is a rush to invent a good system of being able to transmit the human voice over wire. Bell, Gray, and finally Edison were in a ?fight to the finish' to patent a method that was both practical and reliable. It was one thing to produce a click or buzz down a wire but the human voice is a huge step forward back then. Eventually it was Bell and Edison that won out, but not after many lawsuits had been fought.
So just what was it they had to do? They had to invent a way to transmit from one transmitter to a receiver a sound that was the same as the human voice. Just how was it done? How was a human voice to be transmitted with all its varying qualities such as loudness, tone, pitch etc.
To get right down to understanding the real difficulties let's look at the sensation of sound. The sound sensation we hear is produced because of fluctuations in the pressure of the atmosphere that enter our ear. The delicate inner ear mechanisms vibrate and produces the sound sensation that we call hearing. Now if the fluctuations are very irregular and none periodic we would probably be putting our hands over our ears and considering it a noise. If the pressure fluctuations are regular and say ? cyclic we would be hearing what we term as music. Music is complex being made up of pitch, quality and loudness. Regarding pitch, this depends on the number of cycles passed through by the fluctuations of the pressure in a given time. Loudness would depend on the amount or amplitude of the fluctuation in each cycle. Quality depends on the nature or form of the fluctuation in each cycle. Does this sound daunting? Well it did to the men who were trying so hard to invent a way to reproduce successfully all this by an electrical current traveling down a wire and then convert back again! So any telephone system has to do all this, reproducing all these characteristics.
So we come back to our original question. How does your telephone work? Here we are going to take a simple land line device as an example.
Your telephone basically has to do two things using 2 wires, transmit signals and your voice. The signal is the ring tone you get. It used to be a bell that alerts you to an incoming call. Then there is a dial (now a digital push button) that is used to enter the phone number of the person you wish to speak to. When you lift the handset you activate a switch which puts the phone in what is termed 'active mode'. This is done by creating a resistance short across the wires so that a current can flow along the telephone wires. Once this is done the telephone exchange detects the DC current, connects a digit receiver and sends to you a dial tone which indicates it is ready for you to dial or push the number buttons. These buttons are connected to a tone generator in your phone and generates DTMF tones. Now the exchange will know who you desire to be connected to. Whilst your phone is inactive with the handset replaced, its bell or other alerting device is connected across the line through a capacitor. Because this does not short the line the telephone exchange knows that your telephone is not being used and 'on hook'. This also means that only the bell is connected electrically, so when someone calls your number the exchange sends a high voltage pulsating signal that causes the phone to ring. When you pick up the handset the switch disconnects the bell then connects the voice parts of your phone putting the resistance short on the line as described previously. This now tells the exchange that you have answered your phone. Now that both phones have their handsets of the cradle this is the signaling job done. You can now talk to your friend using the voice parts of your phone. The voice parts are in the handset and consist of a transmitter (microphone) and a receiver. The transmitter being powered by the line puts out an electric current which varies in response to acoustic pressure waves caused by your voice. This causes variations of the electric current transmitted along the telephone line to the other phone. Once these hit the other phone they cause the coil in the receiver to move back and forth, this reproducing the same acoustic pressure waves as the transmitter received from your voice. So your friend now hears what you said like you were stood next to them. This applies vice versa to you, so you have your conversation. Once you have finished the conversation, when you replace the handset the DC current ceases to flow and the exchange detects this so disconnects the callers.
The greatest difficulty to those early pioneers of telephone was the development of the transmitter and the receiver. It is so easy to take these for granted.
Well if the above has had your head spinning then I ask you to think about those early pioneers of the telephone. They had to work out how to make the transmitter and receiver to vary the electric current in a perfect way so as to transmit voice. They were the ?brains' of their day and we owe them a lot.
Nowadays, we have a huge raft of new technology allowing conversation worldwide effortlessly (so it may seem) but always think of those guys out there somewhere who are making it just that ? effortlessly easy!
Both Paul Fitzgerald & Michael Moore are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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