Mobile Phone Masts

John

They were planning to do the same in my area close to my home. They did have to have planning permission and the local residents successfully managed to block its progress.

As to being a NIMBY....there's probably an element of that in all of us and we can't always behave selflessly. After all I would rather suffer poor mobile phone reception in some areas than accept a (possible but unproven) health risk to me and my children.

In actual fact I quite like the fact that my phone has poor reception near my home. It means I can get a degree of peace as it is a company phone and it is always on.

Mark

I'd be concerned, very concerned.

We have successfully fought against several proposed phone masts locally.

At a meeting I pointed out to the council and the phone company about the proximity of the school to the proposed mast site. The phone company looked at their map and asked "what school?". I said, "the one that is obliterated by the outline of the main lobe of your transmitter."

The planning committee of the local council decided to define stricter rules for siting these monstrosities. They decided that they should be at least 1000m away from any school.

Sadly, the county border is only about 100m from one of our local schools and there is a proposal for a mast just over the border.

I read the UKs Stewart Report on the subject - it was the biggest arse covering exercise I have ever encountered. Phones are big money in the UK - Gordon Brown made £20 billion on the sale of the licences so the government here isn't going to be anti-mobiles are they?

Your microwave is about a million times more dangerous. Unless the mast falls on someone of course. Whether the phones connecting to said mast are dangerous,well that's another problem.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
Your microwave is about a million times more dangerous. Unless the mast falls on someone of course. Whether the phones connecting to said mast are dangerous,well that's another problem.

Really Howard? Do you mean a microwave oven is a million times more dangerous or that a mast is really not very dangerous at all? Most opinions either way seem to have an axe to grind and it's difficult to find the truth.

The point is that nobody knows whether they are deleterious or not. The field trials are being carried out right now by those with phones and those near masts. Personally I think if you use a phone you accept the risk. I am very unnerved about siting masts near schools though and think we should err on the side of caution.

I was making a point of worrying about an as yet unproven problem when you possibley live with a potentially more dangerous one every day.
I seem to remember a load of fuss about living under/near high voltage power lines.Did that "go away" ? Was anything ever proved about it being dangerous.

quote:

Originally posted by bob mccluckie:
Personally I think if you use a phone you accept the risk. I am very unnerved about siting masts near schools though ....

Did I read the other day that most 10+ years olds have a mobile?

I do not know whether a mobile phone mask is dangerous or harmful - however for the sake of consistency one would have to be aware of a local Wifi base station adjacent to you by the computer and also the Blue Tooth transmissions that pervade our lives.

I think if you were going to summarise the plethora of fact/myth/opinion/hype about the safety of these masts you'd say. 'Probably very safe, but not yet proven to be'. I think that mobile phones themselves have probably moved into the 'almost certainly safe' category.

I'm sure they have to get planning permission but in a recent case locally they lost twice and then apparently can make a 'special appeal' to central government. The outcome is awaited.

I would personally campaign against one being built locally-I love living somewhere that has no reception for the wretched things. Wouldn't mind better DAB though!

a load of fuss about living under/near high voltage power lines.Did that "go away" ? Was anything ever proved about it being dangerous.

As a member of a family that took part in the UK childhood cancer survey I can report that indeed living near to pylons has been found to be dangerous. There have been even more damning indictments of pylons in sone Scandinavian surveys.
Houses adjacent to substations are virtually unsellable now.

We go to a childrens playground sometimes that has a pylon sited right in the middle of it. We can only stay there max 20 minutes before my wife has to leave because of headaches. It just can't be good, and it's crazy to put pylons or masts near a school.
We have a school locally where the Planners have just approved a waste transfer station adjacent to a school where the two are separated by only a wall. The operatives on the site will wear protective clothing and masks, and the children will be playing in the playground 10 metres away. That's not even considering the steady stream of refuse trucks. The protests went on for months, but someone at the council must have had a backhander, or they're all Freemasons, which amounts to the same thing I suppose. If I think about it too much I'll have to have a lie down it makes me so angry. Brighton & Hove City Council are scum.

Chaps

It is plain bloody hypocritical to complain about masts when you use a mobile phone yourself.

You made the problem by buying the thing.

If we all stopped buying mobiles, there would be no masts.

Regards

Mick

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:
Chaps

It is plain bloody hypocritical to complain about masts when you use a mobile phone yourself.

You made the problem by buying the thing.

If we all stopped buying mobiles, there would be no masts.

Regards

Mick

That's like saying complaining about water quality is invalid if we drink it.

I'm worried about the health effects of the mast being 5m away from my kids school.
It is accepted that children are more susceptible than adults to radio frequency waves or non ionising radiation, whichever you want to call it.

From reading an oirechtas (like a commons select committee ) report into it this afternoon, I feel there is enough there to warrant caution around a school (or hospital).
Apparently all safety figures are based on the EMF causing thermal harm but some recent studies strongly suggest there may be other biological mechanisms at play.


I found it telling in a submission by a departmental official he emphatically pronounced that €40 million had been spent in the last 10 years on research. EU companies spent €140 BILLION on 3G licences. I'm ill at ease on this one. Hope I don't end up like Arthur Dent under the bulldozer.



SJB

Sloop

I use a mobile and I expect crystal clear clarity where ever I go.

I couldn't care where they site the masts, in fact the more the better.

I just don't want them near me.

Some nimby is going to lose out and once again, that's ok as long as it ain't me.

That sums up the hypocritical viewpoint of most users including me.

Regards

Mick

I worked in a house in Kendal a few years back, this house had in it's back garden the foot of a high voltage pylon 15ft from the back door. The rythmic hum inside the house from this powerline was annoyingly loud. The purpose of my visit was to repair his faulty oven timer on an oven which was only 1 week old.

After a bit of banter the householder carried out his party piece, he stood under the high voltage pylon, and held one end of a fluorescent tube up towards the said pylon, and I stress I'm not having you on here, and with disbelief, it bloody well lit up!

The chap went on to say that when it rained sparks could be seen and heard.


I thought it amusing at the time, but the electromagnetic field in and around that bungalow was in my opinion, what was causing his spurious electrical problems as I could'nt get a proper reliable reading on my multimeter.

Beano

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:
Sloop

I use a mobile and I expect crystal clear clarity where ever I go.

I couldn't care where they site the masts, in fact the more the better.

I just don't want them near me.

Some nimby is going to lose out and once again, that's ok as long as it ain't me.

That sums up the hypocritical viewpoint of most users including me.

Regards

Mick

What's so funny about peace love and understanding!


SJB

quote:

Originally posted by Sloop John B:
There are erecting as we speak a mobile phone mast beside the school

SJB

Maybe this is the reason?

My mother in law used to work in a school where they had some phone masts on the roof of the building. They were there from the old analogue days and had been replaced with digital transmitters.

She used to complain of headaches. She's now retired and the headaches have gone away. Co-incidence?

quote:

And the one on the left is phoning the one on the right.

quote:

She used to complain of headaches. She's now retired and the headaches have gone away. Co-incidence?

No she is away from the children. I only have 2 and they give me headaches, imagine 30+ of them!

We used to have a cellphone transmitter about 6 feet directly above our heads in our old HQ building. I used to get headaches all the time.

Mind you, anything with an electric circuit can give out EMI/RFI, so cancer's all around, or something.