[Wswss] [Sbms] Fw: [VHF] Now here's a ditty fer ya'!
Art McBride
kc6uqh at cox.net
Wed Apr 8 01:18:12 EDT 2009
The First day of April was last week.
Art
-----Original Message-----
From: PATRICK COKER [mailto:n6rmj at sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 9:33 AM
To: microwave at lists.valinet.com; moon-net at list-serv.davidv.net;
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Subject: [Sbms] 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.
****************************************************************************
*
*
****
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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