Despite the fact that this spectrum has never been used for any widespread purpose, we're rolling it out and the burden is not on the implementers to prove that it is safe. It's basically on researchers to both prove, publicize, and convince society as a whole that 5G has health impacts.
I am not going to go all conspiracy-theory and say that the research is being suppressed but certainly funding for this research is not going to be a priority for the US government, as they've been thoroughly bought and paid for. Most research into health effects of non-ionizing radiation is not funded from the US government, so draw your own conclusions from that.
Your neighbor can blast 24 ghz right at your house with a free licence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1.2-centimeter_band
The reason microwaves (like from a microwave oven) are dangerous are because of their power levels. Like, they'd cook you if they leaked out. Not because of ionizing radiation.
Nope, they wouldn't. The standing wave would break down as soon as it left the enclosure. It would still be a potentially harmful amount of radiation, but not like that.
And no, 24 GHz is not in common use. It's used for special applications, mostly highly directional tower-to-tower links (I have one sitting on my roof for a high-bandwidth HAM radio link). With 5G, it will be ubiquitous in an unprecedented way. We've already seen plenty of interference with 5 GHz.
Of course, there's a lot of fearmongering whenever RF radiation is involved, but there are genuine safety concerns.
Source: HAM radio operator
Yeah that's a good point
>And no, 24 GHz is not in common use. It's used for special applications, mostly highly directional tower-to-tower links (I have one sitting on my roof for a high-bandwidth HAM radio link).
That's what I mean by common use. Omnidirectional antennas aren't in common use.
Professor also admonished us that such technicians must always be infinitely certain that the transmitter is not operational at the time of service.
It's a good thing your professor is not a tower technician. No self respecting technician climbs up a tower without knowing his potential exposure.
There is a reason both the US FCC and EU ICNIRP have guidelines for human exposure, and if you are a tower technician you wear a personal RF densitometer to ensure you are not exposed above these levels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_RF_safety_monitor
"Electromagnetic field densitometers, as used in the cellular phone industry, are referred as "personal RF safety monitors", personal protection monitors (PPM) or RF exposimeters.[1] They form part of the personal protective equipment worn by a person working in areas exposed to radio spectrum radiation."
And even with a densitometer, when working on high-powered live equipment, you also wear a protective suit:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Nardaler...
I hope you forward this information to your professor. Industrial RF radiation is not something you want to play around with.
Not so when it's a huge multi-tier tower - that's your whole body facing the tower getting that dose.
I'm a software engineer, a technologist, by trade and I was in complete denial about this until I started getting serious eczema that only went away when I stopped using wireless gadgets and avoided staying too long in areas with cellular base stations.
I denied and denied and denied but repeated experiments on myself only revealed how my body reacts to this stuff. My ideal power density is less than 1mW/m^2 to not break out. And there seems to be a relationship to what LTE bands the tower is transmitting on - outside the US I seem to do better. It could be the frequency, or could be the modulation.
You can erase all references to your professor and swimwear tower climbing from the text. Hats off to him! And again, sorry for the mistake.
Still, I couldn't resist a vision not unlike the penultimate and electrifying golf scene with Bill Murray & the bishop in Caddyshack.
https://emfscientist.org/index.php/emf-scientist-appeal
ctrl-f for "PhD" shows 126 results on the page.
Electromagnetic radiation is used as a signaling medium for countless lifeforms on earth, including the cells and microbes in our own bodies.
Imagine if some alien creature decided they wanted to flash relatively bright blue light across the entire surface planet, day and night at frequencies that known to induce epileptic seizures. It'd affect your quality of life and mine. For some people, it'd be devastating.
Just because we can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.
I fail to see how a blanket dismissal of peoples concerns, however uninformed many of them may be, counts as "rational"!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
Show me one species that uses GHz signalling.
Instead of appeals to authority, why can't we work with the facts and evidence that we have already (those overwhelmingly disproving the health hazards of 5G)?
"Peoples concerns" equate to the desire to halt all human progress out of some bizarre mix of paranoia and Neo-Luddism.
It's an inconvenient possibility (not going to call it truth) that our technology might be hurting us. We're addicted to technology the same way smokers are addicted to nicotine.
Smoking was at one time considered healthy and promoted by doctors, and now where are we?
If it doesn't cook you like microwaves or causes radiation sickness 3 hours after exposure it is immediately declared universally safe.
Of course that's negligent at best. Looks like we will live through in vivo testing for those questions, I suppose.
Yeah well, I'd like to see that overwhelming evidence please.
But since, I am not a biologist nor physicist, I could not really examine it in detail. So I would have to believe the authorative power of the experts who day it is all good.
Then I compare the arguments to the experts who say yes.
I took a random one for the country I live in: According to wikipedia, this person who got his PhD in 1973 and has since retired has done research in 'quantum philosophy and spirituality'.
The second one, retired also, is a biologist who researched subterranean mammals. He and his team got an Ig-Nobel price in 2014 for their finding that dogs align themselves to earth's magnetic field when pooping.
I'm not sure I want to continue.
Well actually that seems like relevant information for this topic, because if that is true it means that dogs can sense magnetic fields. And as we know RF waves are composed of both an electric and magnetic component.
So this guy might actually know something that the rest of us do not know. If dogs can sense magnetic fields, it means electromagnetic radiation could have an unknown impact on their sense of direction. Sounds important to me.
Here's another guy that seems to know what he is talking about.
Prof. Olle Johansson, Ph.D., Dept. of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Seems like someone you might want to listen to, especially since he has participated in several studies on this subject:
https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/the-work-of-olle-johansso...
You can also find his talks on the subject on Youtube, which I suggest people watch. They are very easy to listen to, and provides a good introduction to these topics.
Then we have this guy:
Dr. Paul Héroux, Ph.D., Director, Occupational Health Program, McGill University; InvitroPlus Labs, Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University, Canada
He was commissioned by the electrical power companies to actually invent the RF dosimeter in 1991, that many use now to gauge exposure levels.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1930308
I'd certainly want to know what he has to say. Let's look at some of the rest:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=H%C3%A9roux%20P%5B...
Several publications relating EMF exposure. I think we want to know what he has to say also.
So perhaps you should not have give up so easily, and continued to look a little further instead. We want to look for the people who have the expertise in this field, and listen to what they have to say.
To finish off, I'd like to know where are the scientists that have studied this subject as extensively as someone like Heroux or Johansson, and are willing to sign their names on a pledge of microwave safety for all of humanity. I haven't seen such a list.
"The 5G recommendation for global irradiation. Go ahead, we take responsibility for full irradiation." In fact there is no such recommendation, as both insurance companies and even the cellular manufacturers are increasingly distancing themselves from liability.
That's what I call a clue.
But microwave links are P2P and directional, using narrow beams at a certain height so that humans (or other objects) don't get in the way. That will not be the case with 5G.
The thing about sweat glands is interesting. And sadly I have no idea how to evaluate the quality of the studies linked.
The bad news is that there are and will be entrenched interests that will likely try to "work around" any health concern, and maybe, potentially we will hear that the existence of 5G is worth it. (For example the tech advantage helps with healthcare more than the radiation harms us.)