'Just last week your reporter noticed two stench pipes - sewer chimneys that look like lampposts without lamps - which had been hastily converted into mobile-phone masts. It brings a whole new meaning to the term "gutter talk".'

..and you'd get a crap reception....

What have a church and a radio mast got in common?

They both make it easier for people to talk bollocks! \o/

Nice one :)

The "turn off your phone" notices at the pumps are a nonsense in themselves. There's never been a recorded ignition at a petrol pump due to a mobile phone. The RF they give out is not enough to ignite vapour. Taxis have much more powerful radios in them too. While the battery could explode, turning off the phone will have marginal preventative effect. The single greatest cause of explosions on forecourts is static discharge.

You don't 'do' Catholics.

I think the church has the right aprouch. That is to decide on a case by case basis. If as the photo in the artical showes you can't see the areial and the perishoners don't object to much why not put areals on churches? We live with the radiation for better or worse anyway so the only objection would be being eraiated when in church which for most of us would be never.

Nice to see that churches are useful after all

Could start a trend here. The moon shaped thing on Mosques could easily be a Satellite dish in profile. Mind you some wackjobs (who'd be more at home in the 13th Century) would probably object to electronics as it's not in their fantasy book (written by god - obviously in his spare time - would he be classed as a ghost writer?) and therefore must be witchcraft...

What do we do with witches?

Oooh your going straight to heck for that one....

As a radio amateur, I have a decent-sized transmitting aerial in my garden.

Although I've done my best to minimise the visual impact, local folk know it's there as there's only a 4-foot fence between it and a public park with the footpath right alongside my garden.

People often ask what the aerial is and what I use it for, and I've never once had a negative response to my explanation.

People aren't afraid of radio waves, even at power levels 'considerably' in excess of those radiated by cellphone masts... there's something about the fact it's a phone mast that makes the difference - some of the very same people fascinated by my radio gear were up in arms about a cellphone mast planned nearby a while ago, so much so it was resited.

Couldn't be anything to do with the media's need to create a good scare to sell papers, could it?

Perish the thought...

If you go to Google satellite view of the Vatican, you can see an enormous solar panel over the museum entrance area:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=41.906383,12.453789&spn=0.000886,0.001853&t=h&z=19

Paris, because she's my little ray of sunshine

How about we combine it all so its an All-in-One Religious symbol:

Angel with the halo designed to work as a wind turbine, the wings can be the solar panels, the CO2 detector can be its knob, the mast still remains in the jacksie and the camera can be the eyes....with alittle bit of automation in there so the head can turn and follow whoever :)