[South Florida DX Association] Ridiculus

[Norman Alexander]

The following is a great example of how weird a left wing, socialist
society can be -  hopefully the next earthquake drops California into
the Pacific.

 Regards,

Norm W4QN
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THIS IS ABSOLUTLY  REDICULOUS! 
________________________________
  
 

   
 
Subject: California County Taking Actions To Silence  ALL Ham Activity



From:  www radiobanter com

San Luis  Obispocounty supervisors took drastic  and unprecedented action 
yesterday by passing an ordinance that would  prohibit amateur radio 
operators, known as "hams", from operating their  transmitting stations. The 
measure was put in place to eliminate what  officials said were health risks 
associated with transmitters located  close to children. A legal struggle is 
expected.

By a vote of 4 to  1 with one abstention, the governing board of SLO county 
took action aimed  at addressing a recent Stanford University study that 
showed a correlation  between ham radios and attention de ficit disorder and 
hyperactivity in  children, as well as nagging reports of interference caused 
by radio hams  operating their high-powered transmitters in residential 
neighborhoods.

"Our primary responsibility is to provide a safe  environment for children to 
live without the dangerous effects of radio  waves constantly bombarding them 
and causing proven neurological and  psychological problems," said E. Duane 
Nyborg, an attorney who represented  the county in several court cases in the 
past year. "Hams are not the only  culprits, but they are usually in very 
close proximity to children and are  no doubt a major contributor to the 
health problems we've been seeing. The  interference is just the last straw 
that convinced the county that  something had to be done about it."

Atascadero city manager Laura Lopez  said that she has seen a tenfold 
increase in the number of complaints of  interference from ham radio 
operators in the last six months. New housing  developments which have 
dramatically increased the population there and  placed homes unusually close 
to each other are the predominant  contributing factor. Similar conditions 
exist in most of the  county.

"We have radio hams getting into toasters, electric pianos,  light bulbs, 
everything, from their powerful transmitters that cause all  this static. 
Many of our citizens can't use basic appliances or watch  television because 
of all the junk that the hams are broadcasting," she  tol d the Press-Telegram 
by telephone.

Hams can't say they didn't  see this coming. They were warned by the county 
last year that if they did  not submit to a check of their stations by 
officials, they would have  limits imposed on their operation. Few consented 
to the searches, which  most decried as invasive. But nobody expected a total 
ban on  transmissions.

"This is outrageous. You'd better believe we're going to  fight back and win. 
This is a totalitarian seizure of our rights that is  totally illegal and can't 
stand up," said Frank Wilson, a local ham club  president. He said there were 
no formal plans for an appeal yet but  preparations were underway.

Wilson claims that a federal preemption of  local zoning ordinances, called 
PRB-1, delineates three rules for local  municipalities to follow in 
accomodating antenna structures such as are  used by hams. But Nyborg says 
that PRB-1 applies to antenna structures  only, and not the transmitters used 
to feed the antennas with a radio  signal. "We know all about PRB-1. That's 
why we said nothing about  antennas. This law is not about antennas. It goes 
after the root of the  problem, which is the transmitters that put out huge 
signals that get into  the brains of our children and short-circuit them out. 
Those are the  facts, that's what the scientific evidence points to," he said 
at a news  conference called shortly after the county's action.

In 2008, a grou p  of researchers in the school of Environmental Health and 
Safety at  Stanford published their findings that exposure to ham radio 
signals for  three hours per day increased the risk of hyperactivity and 
related  disorders by 10% in children aged 12 and under. This effect was seen 
when  a typical ham radio was turned on up to ¼ mile away. The San Luis 
Obispo  city office says that up to 11,000 children in that city live that 
close  to a ham radio station.

The Stanford study showed that frequencies  around 3.5, 7, and 14 Megahertz 
were the most harmful, but that the danger  existed all the way up to 450 
Megahertz and above.

"We know where  the hams are, that information is easy to get on the 
Internet," said  former mayor of Paso Robles and current county supervisor 
Anthony Wu.  "Most of these guys are running one hundred watts of power, that's 
an  incredible amount of radiation, and you can't block it out. It enters 
your  house, it gets into your body and does a lot of damage there."

Cindy  MacMahon, 41, of Morro Bay, soccer mom of two and volunteer at city 
bake  sales, praised the action by the board of supervisors and looked 
forward  to radio-free days ahead. "I'm always getting interference on my TV 
and  stereo that I'm sure is from the guy down the street with his big tower. 
I  don't know why they even allow those big, ugly things. I know that my kids 
are harder to control whe n he turns that thing on and I've been saying  that 
for three years."

Most area hams were totally unaware of the  new law and Wilson believes there 
will be a revolt when they discover it.  "I will be speaking about it at our 
club meeting on Friday. We would  normally disseminate the information by 
radio, but of course that's  illegal for the moment."

Amateur radio operator Clay Collins of Pismo  Beach, was incredulous. "We 
provide free emergency communications for the  county, we assist the police 
department, we help out several times a year  on all manner of public events, 
and this is the thanks we get. Someone is  badly informed. Next thing you 
know, we'll be accused of being responsible  for global warming." Another 
radio ham who identified himself only as  "Deke" said that although a number 
of hams were mobilizing to do what they  could he was pessimistic. "I 
actually know that Nyborg guy. He walks  around twelve hours a day with a 
cell phone up to his head and yet he's  worried about the tiny amount of 
radiation from my transmitter." Deke  claims that the frequencies of a cell 
phone are close to that of a  microwave oven. "You hold a [cell] phone up to 
your head, you're cooking  your brain slowly," he warned.

Collins, a ham of fifty-three years and  grandfather of six, lives in a 
housing tract with a homeowners'  association that already regulates ham 
radio operators. He says that  restrictive H OA agreements exacerbate the 
problem. "By prohibiting high  antenna towers, [the HOA rules] force me to 
place my antennas lower and  closer to my neighbors, and force me to use 
higher power to make up for  the difference in performance." He said that his 
antenna, which is located  in his attic, creates far more radiation on the 
ground than if it were up  on a 50-foot tower-the same type of tower Collins 
applied for in 1997 but  was denied a permit for. Hams are required by the 
FCC to keep track of the  amount of radiation from their antennas but Collins' 
station is far below  the allowable limits, he says. "In the next earthquake, 
all of my  neighbors will be running to my house to send messages out to 
their loved  ones in other places. I hope they remember this."

Dick Henley, a member  of the Electronic Industries Association who lives in 
Ann Arbor, Michigan,  claims that most of the interference to appliances, 
televisions, and  phones can't be blamed on hams going about their normal 
activity. "The  vast majority of these appliances is insufficiently shielded 
against  external fields. The slightest interference- even from a garage door 
opener or a cell phone-can disrupt it. In most cases, it's not the ham's 
fault." He said that on the contrary, hams are usually the ones who must 
suffer with interference from these electronic devices. "Most of the stuff 
coming out of China spews interference to radios, but the h ams have just 
learned to live with it. Homeowners are totally oblivious to this," he  said.

Xiang Qang, the principal investigator at Stanford who  co-published the 
original paper, explained that the radio waves, over the  long term, polarize 
cells in the brain tissue and bias a child toward  rough or anti-social 
behavior. "We saw these children who couldn't sit  still, couldn't listen to 
a book being read to them, and who had severe  reading delays and 
disabilities. We started to see that each time a  television was turned on 
near them, they would actually exhibit worse  behavior. So we followed that 
path: why the television? Why the  television? Then we discovered that is 
wasn't the television, but the  radiation from it. So we tested many other 
types of transmitters and found  that the worst ones were ham transmitters 
from Icom and Yaesu, with the  Kenwoods being marginally better."

Qang explains that it is the brain's  frontal lobe which is most vulnerable 
to external radiation due to its  location at the front of the cranium just 
behind the forehead, its  proximity to the sphenoid wing- the bone at the 
temple that houses the  pituitary gland- and it's large size. "The frontal 
lobe absorbs a lot of  radiation and since it governs our behavior, this is 
why we think that  attention deficit and hyperactivity are the symptoms of 
prolonged  absorption of high-frequency waves in that region," she  said.

"Nonsense," says Dr. V. Subrahaminayalakshminirayana, head of  neurology at 
Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco. "There is absolutely no  conclusive 
evidence in the literature to support an ambitious and  imaginative theory 
that ionizing radiation can deleteriously and  negatively affect behavior in 
children whether the exposure is at a  relatively constant low-level or 
periodic." He believes that attention  deficit hyperactivity is more likely a 
function of exhaustive  over-stimulation of the brain by video games, 
texting, and television  viewing. "Ask the Asian parents of your child's 
playmate why they never  seem to have this problem," he laughed..

In fact, the Stanford study  found that Hispanic children were fourteen times 
as likely to suffer the  effects of radio waves than were Asian children. 
Hydra Brock-Parker, dean  of sociology at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a 
consultant named in the  Stanford study, says that Hispanics live in 
depressed parts of a city  where houses and apartments are packed closer 
together and the possibility  of exposure is much greater. "Where are all of 
those children going to go  to escape radiation from transmitters? There's no 
backyard to play in and  besides, you wouldn't want your children playing 
outside in those  neighborhoods. If you've got, you know, a ham serial-killer 
type next door  flooding your apartment with high-intensity radio waves, you 
have no  choice but to sit there and get sick," she said.

Representatives20from  Marin, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties were present 
at the press  conference and were said to be keenly interested in the 
implementation of  the new law. A similar measure was introduced into the 
L.A. County Board's  docket on Monday and may be considered at the next 
session in  May.