Cell towers= Deathtowers?

[Pat K]

Look out it's coming for you!

[Pat K]

Man these old big ones, must have killed scores.

[Pat K]

Can you hear me now Mother F*#cker!

[Pat K]

Of course there is always an exception to the rule.

This phone can kill ya.

[Tom Sawyer]

Can you hear me now Mother F*#cker!

[Faber]

Now, to be fair, the literature really has been mixed on the effects of cell phones.  The short-term studies (usage less than 10 years) seem to lean negative (no effect), while the long-term studies (usage longer than 10 years) seem to lean slightly positive (slight increased risk of cancer).  There needs to be more well-controlled scientific studies on the subject, though.  To say there's a slam dunk in either direction is to ignore half the body of research, as kola seems to have done.

There's been less research on the actual towers themselves, but most of that stuff about headaches and nausea and depression and stuff is purely psychosomatic; one study showed that people who complained that their symptoms were caused by the towers emitting could not tell when a tower was or was not emitting.

[Pat K]

Yeah well this guy had a problem with an earlier communacation
type tower.

[Pat K]

Sneaky bastards ain't they.

[erisian]

The radiation from cell tower antennas is not omnidirectional. Microwaves are strange beasts, and it is possible to construct a microwave antenna with virtually any radiation pattern that you want. The antennas used on towers have a wide spread horizontally, but a very narrow, like 20°, vertical spread. Assuming that they have been properly installed, there could be less radiation received by a person standing directly under the tower than one standing several hundred yards away in the center of the beam. Here in the mountains it is common knowledge that cell phones often don't work if you are too close to a tower on a hilltop because the beam is way over your head, as science is for some people. BTW, a single layer of tinfoil (or any metal) will stop or reflect microwave radiation.
If you don't believe that, then wrap an egg in tinfoil and put it in the microwave oven, then try it without the tinfoil.

I'm not saying that microwave radiation isn't dangerous, but if you don't understand how it works, you can end up with some seriously erroneous ideas. Wifi devices are limited by FCC reg's to something like 34 milliwatts. My router, feeding a high-gain slotted waveguide antenna, puts out about as much radiation at zero distance from the antenna as my microwave oven leaks at zero distance from the door seal. Big deal. But again, in an urban environment, with a gazillion cell "towers" mounted to walls and what not, there can easily be dangerous radiation levels because the FCC doesn't consider the cumulative levels, only the levels created by the single antenna, when it issues licenses. Bureaucratic stupidity at it's finest.

[Little Owl]

I couldn't keep reading that website.  I lost track of the technically inaccurate statements before I had to even scroll down.

Although, I DO believe that cell phones pose a real danger.  They're as harmless as smoking was in the 1950s.

I wonder if luddites claimed that indoor plumbing was somehow dangerous, back in the day?

It was, when made from lead pipes.

[kola]

let me add that these towers are in place for more use than just cell phone usage.

see microwave weaponry.

you have been warned. 

Kola 

[mvpel]

Sneaky bastards ain't they.

A result of government mandates enacted by people who were tired of looking at pug-ugly cell towers dotting the landscape.  They disguise them as pines here in the East.

[John Edward Mercier]

I couldn't keep reading that website.  I lost track of the technically inaccurate statements before I had to even scroll down.

Although, I DO believe that cell phones pose a real danger.  They're as harmless as smoking was in the 1950s.

I wonder if luddites claimed that indoor plumbing was somehow dangerous, back in the day?

It was, when made from lead pipes.

So you support the smoking ban? Or are you of the mind that individuals have a choice?

[Faber]

. . . What?  That seems like a total non-sequitur.  "Smoking is dangerous" does not equal "I support a smoking ban."  "Cell phones are a health risk" does not equal "I support banning cell phones."

[John Edward Mercier]

Not really. The quote was 'as harmless as smoking in the 1950s'. Not, 'they're not anymore harmful than smoking'. Once the quantifier of supposed ignorance is included... it leads to a supposition.