Tower Radiation
Q
I work at a school that has seven antennas on a tower that are 20,000 MHz each. Are they harmful at ground level? My office is less than 30.5 meters away from the tower. Is this harmful at ground level?
A
Your office and the school grounds are quite safe with respect to a nearby cell phone tower.
Cell phone antennas on towers are designed to broadcast radiofrequency (RF) energy primarily towards the horizon to provide good cell phone coverage over a considerable distance from the tower. There is actually much less RF energy transmitted at downward angles directly below the antennas. In the dozens of cell phone installations I have evaluated I have never found a case where the levels of RF energy at ground level came anywhere close to the safety limits prescribed by the Federal Communications Commission and other organizations.
In fact, the RF energy broadcasted by every individual cell phone is causing higher levels of localized RF exposure to the cell phone user than that coming from nearby towers. But the proximity of a tower actually causes most models of cell phones to reduce their RF output to the minimum level needed to communicate with the tower. Because of this one can say that the RF exposure to cell phone users is probably much lower the closer they are to their service provider's cell phone tower.
Gary H. Zeman, ScD, CHP
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Cell phone antennas on towers are designed to broadcast radiofrequency (RF) energy primarily towards the horizon to provide good cell phone coverage over a considerable distance from the tower. There is actually much less RF energy transmitted at downward angles directly below the antennas. In the dozens of cell phone installations I have evaluated I have never found a case where the levels of RF energy at ground level came anywhere close to the safety limits prescribed by the Federal Communications Commission and other organizations.
In fact, the RF energy broadcasted by every individual cell phone is causing higher levels of localized RF exposure to the cell phone user than that coming from nearby towers. But the proximity of a tower actually causes most models of cell phones to reduce their RF output to the minimum level needed to communicate with the tower. Because of this one can say that the RF exposure to cell phone users is probably much lower the closer they are to their service provider's cell phone tower.
Gary H. Zeman, ScD, CHP