Mobile Phone Masts

Democracy, isn’t it great! It allows all types of people to run for election, whether they are right or wrong. Take this for example: last week’s Nenagh Guardian (Free reg.) reports that

A group lobbying against the erection of mobile phone masts are considering running a candidate in North Tipperary in next year’s General Election.

The group, known as B.E.S.T. (Better Environmental & Safer Telecommunications), held a meeting in the Abbey Court Hotel in Nenagh on Saturday last to discuss running candidates in a number of constituencies.

Now firstly, I would like to state all the scientific evidence that supports the belief of some people that mobile masts harm people.

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As you can see from the above list, there is massive amounts of data to support this claim and as you can see, I have linked to no studies because, well, there are no studies, certainly none that I can find from good sources, but if anyone can point me to one, please do. I could say that this
rise in anti-mobile masts groups is due poor science education in the country, especially physics, but however true that might be, it is a cheap shot.

There has been numerous studies done that have not been able to prove any connection. And the basic reason is this: the inverse square law.

I is the intensity, P is the power, and r is the distance from the mast. Basically, the power decreases by r^2, so the further away from the mast you are, the lower the intensity. And this value decreases rapidly. The average mast would be, let’s say, ten meters high. That means the intensity at the bottom of the mast has dropped by a factor of 100. (Technically there would be no signal at the bottom of the mast as the angle of output means a few meters around the mast get no power anyway.) Now, a mobile mast has maximum of sixteen channels but apparently four is typical, but let’s take sixteen. Now, each channel is going to be connected to a phone, so that a mobile phone is going to broadcasting a signal equal to the power being sent to the mast. So basically the power that your mobile phone emits is going to be at a maximum 1/16 of the power of the base station. So for you to get more microwave energy from the phone mast at full power that you are standing under when you phone, your phone would have to be about 6 meters from you.

How close is your phone from you right now? How many other phones are also within 6 meters of you? Are you right beside a mobile mast?

But I suppose that does not matter. Masts look dangerous, microwave radiation has the word “radiation” in it, and people use words like cumlative dose which sounds technical so people believe it. And when do we let facts get in the way of a good scare story?

Update A mast in Limerick is also causing problems as it is 100 meters from a school. At 1 hundred meters  the power is down my a factor of 10,000 or tge same power as a mobile at a rough estimate 25 meters.