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

Tue Apr 7 17:04:32 EDT 2009

You can take a deep breath, it's not true.

Kent WA5VJB

PATRICK COKER wrote:

>
>
>
>----- 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.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>*****************************************************************************
>*
>****
>Sam  Adams said, "'When the people fear the government they have tyranny,
>when the  government fears the people they have freedom
>
>LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL  DISORDER!
>
>
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