[Wswss] Fw: [VHF] Now here's a ditty fer ya'!

[Mike Goshay]

Contacted 2 residents ... It's just a bad joke. I am fighting a developer on 
this very matter right now and I didn't think  it a bit funny .
I hopewhoever the LID that thought this up  lives  in SLO county. Mike w6we
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Maetta" <j.maetta at verizon.net>
To: "PATRICK COKER" <n6rmj at sbcglobal.net>; <microwave at lists.valinet.com>; 
<moon-net at list-serv.davidv.net>; <wswss at mailman.qth.net>; "Magic Band EME" 
<magic at 6meme.com>; "SBMS MAIL" <sbms at lists.altadena.net>; "Microwave list" 
<microwave at echo.valinet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Wswss] Fw: [VHF] Now here's a ditty fer ya'!


> Well for the time being or until a resident ham can validate the story, I 
> am
> going to have to call BS on this article.  I can not locate any info on 
> the
> SLO County BOS's website and meeting minutes.  It appears that a regular
> meeting was held on March 31, and no mention of the articles contents was
> noted.
>
> 73
>
> John
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "PATRICK COKER" <n6rmj at sbcglobal.net>
> To: <microwave at lists.valinet.com>; <moon-net at list-serv.davidv.net>;
> <wswss at mailman.qth.net>; "Magic Band EME" <magic at 6meme.com>; "SBMS MAIL"
> <sbms at lists.altadena.net>; "Microwave list" <microwave at echo.valinet.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 9:33 AM
> Subject: [Wswss] Fw: [VHF] Now here's a ditty fer ya'!
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Forwarded Message ----
>> From: "W6OAL at aol.com" <W6OAL at aol.com>
>> To: vhf at w6yx.stanford.edu
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 8:52:36 AM
>> Subject: [VHF] Now here's a ditty fer ya'!
>>
>> Here is something that all hams should be  interested in!  Who knows what
>> and
>> who will be next!
>>
>>
>> California  County Taking Actions To Silence ALL Ham Activity
>>
>>
>>>From  http://www.radiobanter.com/
>>
>> San Luis Obispo county 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 deficit 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 told 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
>> accommodating 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 group 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 B< 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 when 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 hams 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.