This Is Questionable I Believe

[Ron61]

Got this in an e-mail and thought I would post it to see what others think. It seems a little overdone to me.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5o...e-microon_news

Ron

[392cobra]

I am going to quit putting my phone in my pants pocket.

I really don't want to make my own popcorn balls.

[computerworks]

...proved to be poppycock.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/06/cellphones-cant/

[Ron61]

Thanks CW. I looked on Snopes and didn't find anything but I may not have used the correct search terms. It just looked to much staged to me to be true.

Besides that the phones were ringing, not transmitting and I don't think that ringing would generate any great amount of microwaves.

Ron

[Joe Wicked]

I have been trying to get people to believe for quite a while that this is fake. Just look at the facts of the matter. A CDMA cell phone transmits 1/4 watt at max power. A GSM will transmit at 2 watts Max power. How long does it take you microwave to pop popcorn? Mine is a 1300 watt model that takes almost an entire minute to begin popping, so you want me to believe that if all 4 handsets were GSM, and all 4 were transmitting at Max power and all phones were just enough out of phase to combine without any antenna, or interference loss, and generating a whopping 8 watts, that it would pop in a matter of 4 seconds?

The bad thing is there is a Senator from Maine that is trying to get all Cell Phones to come with a warning that Cell Phones can cause cancer. She wants it to be a Surgeon General warning printed like on Cigarettes. The bad part is she cited these videos as proof that they are dangerous in a recent speech. There is also the warning that Cell Phones can make gas pumps explode. Another absolutely ridiculous notion. A cell phone signal is no different than a CB, walkie talkie, the radio, satellite communications, GPS, etc... Just different frequencies and different encoding.

[rustyBob]

Yeah........what Joe said........its fake.....period.

[Ron61]

Joe,
Another thing is that they wouldn't have had to put the phones in a ring around the corn if this was true. Since in this instance there was nothing to control or aim the microwaves, they would have done the same thing if it was true if the phones had been laying anywhere near the popcorn. And in an oven the microwaves are in a closed environment.

Now if they had done this standing in front of a high power microwave antenna that was transmitting, it would have been believable. However they wouldn't be around to talk about it.

Ron

[Ronbo]

Not only power level but wrong frequency. The resonant freq. of water is 2.5GHZ (what your microwave oven produces). Cell phones are running either 800, 900 or 1.8, 1.9 GHZ.

Low frequency is more harmful to tissue than high freqs (<1MHZ).

I would think the 30yrs of cell phone use with no increase in brain cancer rates would be enough for these idiots, but then again they are idiots so...

[Dan40]

Originally Posted by Joe Wicked

I have been trying to get people to believe for quite a while that this is fake. Just look at the facts of the matter. A CDMA cell phone transmits 1/4 watt at max power. A GSM will transmit at 2 watts Max power. How long does it take you microwave to pop popcorn? Mine is a 1300 watt model that takes almost an entire minute to begin popping, so you want me to believe that if all 4 handsets were GSM, and all 4 were transmitting at Max power and all phones were just enough out of phase to combine without any antenna, or interference loss, and generating a whopping 8 watts, that it would pop in a matter of 4 seconds?

The bad thing is there is a Senator from Maine that is trying to get all Cell Phones to come with a warning that Cell Phones can cause cancer. She wants it to be a Surgeon General warning printed like on Cigarettes. The bad part is she cited these videos as proof that they are dangerous in a recent speech. There is also the warning that Cell Phones can make gas pumps explode. Another absolutely ridiculous notion. A cell phone signal is no different than a CB, walkie talkie, the radio, satellite communications, GPS, etc... Just different frequencies and different encoding.

These are the kind of people we elected to govern, and we wonder why they screw up. All of D.C. is like a mentally challenged Alice in Wonderland. They wouldn't even have a clue on how to look up reality.

[Joe Wicked]

Originally Posted by Ronbo

Not only power level but wrong frequency. The resonant freq. of water is 2.5GHZ (what your microwave oven produces). Cell phones are running either 800, 900 or 1.8, 1.9 GHZ.

Low frequency is more harmful to tissue than high freqs (<1MHZ).

I would think the 30yrs of cell phone use with no increase in brain cancer rates would be enough for these idiots, but then again they are idiots so...

There is 1 more band that you did not mention that is just over the last 2 years begun to be used. You are correct on the bands listed, but AWS band operates on 1.7Ghz for TX and 2.1Ghz for RX

Just curious, are you in the mobile phone industry? Not many people in the US know the European frequencies.

[Ronbo]

I've got close to 30yrs in electronics...

ET in the Navy, Motorola for about 9yrs (2-way, paging, telemetry), another 8 as paging system engineer, last 11 owner of three Nextel / Sprint stores plus wireless telemetry service co. (mainly public utilities)

Not glowing yet, you would think I'd be well done by now.

Those AM transmitter sites, now those will cook you with enough exposure, not to mention getting lit up by unbonded metal within a hundered feet or so of the radiators.

[Joe Wicked]

Originally Posted by Ronbo

I've got close to 30yrs in electronics...

ET in the Navy, Motorola for about 9yrs (2-way, paging, telemetry), another 8 as paging system engineer, last 11 owner of three Nextel / Sprint stores plus wireless telemetry service co. (mainly public utilities)

Not glowing yet, you would think I'd be well done by now.

Those AM transmitter sites, now those will cook you with enough exposure, not to mention getting lit up by unbonded metal within a hundered feet or so of the radiators.

Wow, not too different. ET in the Navy on Submarines for 6 1/2 years, Qualcomm for 2 1/2, and Samsung for almost 9 1/2 so far as a Mobile phone Service Engineer and Customer support Engineer. You got a few more years on me, so hopefully I do as well.

[Ron61]

The Rf Frequencies from the old style overseas radio stations were dangerous too. I once heard of a guy who didn't shut the transmitter down going into the tube room and having his arm severed. My worst thing was just a tiny prick from one of the military radios as I used a lead pencil to test if I had them tuned to max power and this one happened to be a good one and went right through the lead and left a spot the size of the lead in my finger. It almost 10 years for that spot to finally come out. And it stung like mad but it sure made me pay attention when I was working on the high power microwave and other systems.

Ron

[Ronbo]

Originally Posted by Joe Wicked

Wow, not too different. ET in the Navy on Submarines for 6 1/2 years, Qualcomm for 2 1/2, and Samsung for almost 9 1/2 so far as a Mobile phone Service Engineer and Customer support Engineer. You got a few more years on me, so hopefully I do as well.

Got tired of hopping jobs after the paging industry sunk, so the self employment was a survival move. You know your heading for that age where no one will hire you. At least now I can move my company into whatever new technology comes along and not have to clean my desk.

Of course now I have to kiss everyone's azz, instead of just "the boss". But, I've got some great people working for me and hope that they eventually become business owners themselves. 30yr jobs in technology fields are practically non-existant anymore, the company you work for simply won't exist in a few years.

Not to mention I will never, ever, ever work for a large corporation again.

Ron - Yep, had my share of RF burns over the years. Keyed a radio into the center of my palm one time, skin turned white, and a chunk about the size of a small pea fell out two days later. Had a hole in my palm for about a month.

[Ron61]

Ronbo,

They sure do take time for that small hole to fill back in. But it taught me a lesson that I really remembered when working on the microwave up link system later on. The labs did some tests on all different frequencies of microwaves, even tried a very low frequency to see if it would travel through water so they could contact subs with it. Only caused a lot of headaches and other problems.

Ron

[Joe Wicked]

Ronbo,
That is why I keep my CTIA bi-annual Telecommunications Convergence certification up to date every 2 years. Courses are a pain in the butt, but as the technologies change, I at least have a background in the different areas. The one from last year included everything from basic Wireline systems and switches all the way through mobile phone and internet systems, including VoIP. A whole lot of information packed into each course. By doing it, you can really see where the industry is headed.