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Polluted Airwaves
Name: Chelle
Status: Other
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
With all the cellular phones, computer, radars, ham radios, TV's,
beepers, microwaves, satellites systems, etc.: Are our airwaves electronically
polluted?
Replies:
This could be a problem if all the people using the devices did
not cooperate to keep out of each other's way (or off of each other's
wavelength to be more accurate). The Federal Communications Commission
regulates the airwaves, giving legal authority to commercial operators to use
only certain broadcast frequencies in certain areas - that is why radio
stations all have different numbers on the dial. That is really more a problem
of overcrowding, rather than "pollution". There is some debate over whether
all these devices (or any of them) may have a negative effect on human health.
Questions have been raised about a link between miscarriages by pregnant women
and the use of video display terminals, for example.
The evidence is too weak
to really answer the question, because some other factor (such as on-the-job
stress) may have been at work, rather than the electronic "pollution". At any
rate, in the office where I used to work, the labor union got a job-rule
passed saying that people could not be seated closer than two feet to a screen
from the front, or four feet from the back of a video terminal. Better safe
than sorry, I guess. This question is still under study.
Don Libby
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Update: June 2012
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