back to article Moms stand firm against antenna madness

The American town of Hempstead, Long Island, has decreed that phone masts can't be placed within 1500 feet of children, making coverage nearly impossible. The restrictions specify a 1500-foot exclusion zone around homes, day-care centres, schools and churches - all the kinds of places where one might want mobile phone coverage …

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Where is this mounting evidence?

      I mean real evidence - not conjecture or supposition.

      There is plenty of evidence from real scientists - you know those people who study how things work and why they do what they do and take a bit more convincing than some bloke down the pub telling them because everyone knows mobiles cause cancer- that these masts do no harm whatsoever.

      I can't find the link right now but one study springs to mind where they put so-called electromagnetic sensitive people in a room with a box with blinking lights and told them it was a wi-fi access point. Cue lots of oh I can feel it, it gives me a headache, I feel so ill etc even though the box was not transmitting or receiving anything. It was just a box with lights. They then took the box away and starting broadcasting wi-fi and gsm through the room at much higher levels than what you are normally exposed to, but the people didn't know it and every one of them reported how much better they felt now the nasty box was away.

      Many other studies have shown the exact same thing. it's all in the mind. You get exposed to far more radiation from the sun every day, but that doesn't bother people. It's just that radiation is a scary word and automatically makes some people think of uranium, nuclear bombs etc and the damage that can do so they put 2 + 2 together and make CANCER OMG!!!!!

      As for the symptoms you describe, lack of sleep, hormonal imbalance, rashes - it has been proven all these and far more can be caused directly by the persons own brain - a psychosomatic illness. If they convince themselves something is wrong, then their brain makes it wrong.

    2. Martin 19
      FAIL

      After reading your post

      I discovered my left shoulder is itching, and since I scratched it is beginning to turn red in anticipation of a rash.

      This proves that some people get rashes from reading your posts. Ergo, your use of the internet should be banned.

    3. nation of stupid

      evidence?

      Strange people start getting all these problems when phone masts appear, yet they have managed to go through the rest of their lives quite happily while living inside the more powerful radiation fields from TV and radio masts.

      Of course every one of those complaining about phone mast radiation won't have a much more dangerous mobile phone in their possession would they, so they would be somewhat hypocritical to complain when they can't get a phone signal.

    4. peter 45
      Dead Vulture

      Thanks for the scientific argument.....but

      ......mounting evidence......Can you please provide that evidence please. And I mean properly conducted studies, not just anicdotes.

      If you are happy with just anicdotes as evidence, here is one. I worked for a Tetra network operator and we were putting up a new mast. We sent round health questionaires and asked people to fill them in, in the weeks before and after switch on. We got a large number of people complaining of health effects, including, yes you've guessed it, insomnia, disturbed sleep patterns, headaches, and rashes. We had to call of the study when we got hit by a lawsuit claiming we had so destroyed someone's health that they were on long term sick. At that point we had to come clean and confess that the mast had never actually been switched on.

      Conclusions

      1. if you suggest that something may cause a health problem, lots of people believe it, and some even start getting the suggested symptions

      2. People are idiots

      P.S. I am going bald. Is tha due to a hormone imbalance caused by mobile phones, or is it because I am getting old?

    5. disgruntled yank

      Ah, ha!

      "disturb sleep

      lead to hormonal imablances

      some people even get rashes"

      It sounds just like puberty, and by gum the heaviest cell phone use seems to be by adolescents, doesn't it. I think you've solved the case, Warren! Your Nobel in medicine will show up soon.

    6. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      FAIL

      "Mounting evidence"

      No, what there is, is mounting hysteria, in the absence of any such evidence. And even the mounting hysteria is very limited in scope, being only visible in fuckwits with no concept of how to think.

      GJC

  1. Tom_

    interesting physics

    Do the cell towers come complete with an 800 foot radius, spherical faraday cage, so they can just work for people inside them and then the radiation stops at the very specific cut-off point?

    1. Nexox Enigma

      A shpere is a bit excessive...

      """Do the cell towers come complete with an 800 foot radius, spherical faraday cage"""

      To be fair, most of the sort of people that can't be bothered to understand electromagnetic waves tend to think purely in 2 dimensions, since that's about how many they can walk around in. So a 800 foot radius cylinder, roughly the same height as the mast, would probably work just fine for them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Megaphone

        Smoking doesn't cause cancer

        Remember the good old days of all the studies sponsored by ciggie manufacturers which said there was no link between smoking and cancer. Even when everyone knew it was true they still has their research saying no link.

        Research looks a little different now......

        'Smoking causes nine in ten cases of lung cancer. Lung cancer has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers, and is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK. The good news is that most of these deaths are preventable, by giving up smoking in time.......'

        My point is research can say anything you want it to. Will the research all you commentards are pinning you hopes on now be disproven in 30 years time? Who's to say but my ear gets hot if I use my mobile for too long. What would it be like to have mast parked at your bedroom window for 30 years. Nobody knows because the technology hasn't be around all that long. Why risk it when I can pick up my home and use that?

  2. Chris Holt
    FAIL

    Double standards no doubt

    You just know they will be the first ones to complain that they get no reception and that the operators are ignoring them because of the complaints that they have made previously.

    That the operators simply cannot win is not their problem it seems

  3. wim

    good luck ...

    calling an ambulance when you need one.

  4. Aaron Em

    "Someone who doesn't have children"

    No, just someone poor.

  5. Paul 25
    FAIL

    Also...

    I say the phone companies should just give up and shut down all their antennas in the area.

    That would teach the busybody cretins.

  6. Richard IV
    Boffin

    The phone companies clearly aren't thinking big enough...

    Surrounding Long Island, there are 24 giant towers that can emit powerful, focused short wavelength radiation with a range of many miles. As everyone knows, shorter wavelengths do more damage to cells - eg X-Rays and Gamma rays. Yet these towers are accepted, nay welcomed, and often have a positive effect on property values!

    Look at this monster: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/30944048

  7. m45h3d
    Grenade

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    I see your point but without the 'breeders' you wouldn't be here either.

    1. Keith T
      Pint

      Also true that without cattle, pigs and chickens I wouldn't be here

      We all have our part to play in this world, just for some that part doesn't include heavy thinking, community mindedness, or altruistic behaviour.

    2. Chris 211

      @m45h3d

      No I had 'Parents' who could afford to have me and my brother. 2 baby's which is fair and not excessive like 3,4,5 etc.. Arnt I lucky, sadly plenty of children are born into poor, uneducated, over populated slums.

      A 'breeder' (slang usage) is someone who pumps out excessive baby's without the ability to pay for them would then sit at home all day expecting hand outs. I feel sorry for the children.

  8. Jamie Kitson

    Creepy Diseases!

    http://www.dontcellout.com/uploads/4/0/1/1/4011544/739931_orig.jpg

  9. Miek
    FAIL

    Idiots

    What a bunch of ignorant lunatics.

  10. tangerine Sedge

    Bah!

    Bah! Let all the operators remove all coverage for the town. 2 weeks of no coverage and they'll be begging for masts...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look at their wee faces!

    "OK, so if we could get all you kids looking sad...that's great...hold that pose, oh wait, someone get me some bunnies"!

    1. TimeMaster T
      Coat

      Uh ...

      Dude. There guinea pigs.

      1. Diamandi Lucas
        Joke

        Attack of The Killer Mutant Rabbits

        They only look like guinea pigs. They are really mutated rabbits caused by the radiation from the phone towers.

  12. Number6

    From the Phone

    The radiation from the tower is probably less than that received from a phone, and a phone that is further from a tower is going to be radiating at higher power right next to the brain. As such, one could argue that it is in the best interests of children to have the phone mast on top of the school with good receive coverage around its base, so that anyone using a phone in or near the school buildings will get a lower intensity of radiation.

    As for the residents of Hampshire, Lon Gisland (that's how the locals pronounce it, anyway), it would serve them right if the telcos removes all masts from their area and adjusted the coverage of the surrounding ones to make it a black hole.

  13. Richard Wharram
    Alert

    Masts are the least of anyone's worries

    Think of the pipes !!! (and children obv.)

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0915/1224278896060.html

  14. Cameron Colley

    Its a shame that they're not likley to succeed.

    It would be rather funny to watch house prices drop when people realise there is no cell phone coverage in the area leading to poor, and no doubt undesirable, people moving in. Heck, there could even be more crime on the streets with nobody able to phone except from their houses.

    OK I know that it is possible to live a perfectly good life without cell phones at all, but I somehow doubt that removing all the masts would result in hapiness.

    1. F111F
      Grenade

      Compare the rates?

      Anybody want to compare crime rates pre cell-phone and current? I don't think cell phone coverage has any bearing whatsoever on crime rates, but that's just my opinion.

      And since you brought it up, maybe it won't be happiness, but more studying and better grades that results from reduced cell phone coverage. Would've saved me a bundle just on not paying for text messages, let alone the time/frustration nagging the kids to stop the texting and dive into their schoolbooks.

  15. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Yes, but...

    ...is it the mobile phones that made their ears grow?

  16. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
    FAIL

    Ceci n'est pas une title

    I guess the mobile phone companies will just make huge profits by selling picocells to those people who actually want coverage in their own homes.

    I wonder what these people will do when the value of their homes falls in comparison to those in the next town, because they live in a recpetion black-spot? I can't imagine it'll be particularly great for local businesses either...

    Never let reality get in the way of ill-informed public hysteria, eh?

    1. Mike Powers
      Badgers

      Ooh, good idea!

      That's a wonderful grinchy idea, right there--secretly bankroll the "anti-tower" wackos, and then once they manage to make cell phones illegal you blitz the area with picocell marketing...

  17. Mr Young
    Thumb Up

    No children within 1500ft?

    This mast sounds ideal for living! Is it waterproof? Does it have central heating?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Tall tales^W towers

    > The American town of Hampshire, Long Island, has decreed that phone masts can't be placed within 1500 feet of children, making ...

    ... the towers very tall indeed.

  19. Bill Gould
    FAIL

    Also remove

    Land line coverage. Seriously. Let this little burb of luddites fade into obscurity when nobody opens a business there or choses to live there once they're of an age to leave.

  20. Paul 37
    Thumb Up

    Fortunately....

    ...I've just invented this brand new mobile phone that runs purely on happy thoughts and moonbeams.

    Given the sound judgement and common sense exhibited by the good people of Long Island I'm sure I'll have no problem flogging them a few hundred handsets.

  21. Rogerborg

    Look on this as an opportunity

    If we point out that satellites are using SCIENCE! to penetrate their children's soft, defenceless skulls with gay pornography and Keith Olbermann, 24/7, I bet we could get them to wear Aluminium Foil Deflector Beanies.

  22. pj3090

    One down, one to go

    Now that they have defeated cell phone masts, they need to take out the sun. That thing emits an *obscene* amount of radiation.

    1. Evil Genius
      Alien

      Nature

      Never mind that pesky background radiation eh?

      Big bang my Uranus.

  23. Nebulo
    FAIL

    Well, really!

    All these people need do is to make themselves a few "Tower Busters" ( e.g., http://www.whale.to/b/tb3.html) and rely on good ol' Reichian technology to solve the problem.

    Simplez.

    1. visserman

      Reply: Well, really!

      Are these people for real? ROLF

    2. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Re: Tower Busters.

      Actually it's a good thing that there are some people believe this stuff..

      In every population there are a range of levels, of beliefs, IQ, height etc

      We really do need people at the bottom end of the "bell curve", so that the rest of us can get on with some degree of "normality".

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Nebulo

      Priceless, is it just me or did you also hear the sound of a Cuckoo calling while you were looking at that site?

    4. Gilbert Wham

      aaaah, towerbusters

      God, those people are hilarious. It's entertaining to point out to them that it's not very green to be burying chunks of plastic in the ground, mind.

  24. JoeTheAnnoying
    Thumb Down

    Next step: Outlaw vaccination!

    How much do you want to bet that this same moms' group next tries to get vaccination outlawed in their town, 'cause we all know it causes Autism.

    ...then comes CO2, or alcohol...

    ...then life itself becomes outlawed...

    Here comes Judge Death!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Right, so.....

    ....they want the masts placed at least 1500 feet away, despite the fact that they say that they "emit radiation 800 feet in every direction".

    Presumably their children aren't taught maths in school either. Oh, sorry, I meant math...

  26. LinkOfHyrule
    Paris Hilton

    MILTHY

    MILTHs'

    That is all!

  27. jonfr
    Boffin

    About those transmissions...

    Given that in the U.S they use GSM850/1900 (3G1700/2100/1900/850) there is no way that the cell mast have any health effects what so ever. The transmission power is also quite small, just 10 to 50W at maximum.

    Given those facts in mind. I say that in confidence that this peoples are idiots. The mobile companies should do this people a favor and remove all the mobile masts in 2km range or more.

  28. nick jordan

    mentalists

    I particularly like this comment from the site: "Did you know that in Bayville, Long Island, there is a Water Tower near the elementary school with multiple cell antennas on it? There is a lawsuit to have them removed. 30% of the staff and children are sick. Many have CANCER and 3 children have died."

  29. Kubla Cant

    Arithmetic?

    We have it on the best technical authority that the masts "emit radiation 800 feet in every direction". So why the 1500 ft restriction? What happens in the intervening 700 ft?

    (Yes, I realise that's not how radiation works, but Moms know best, don't they?)

  30. SteveK

    Going round in circles

    Couldn't other people in the town use the same argument and say that the lack of a mobile signal is having a detrimental effect on the property values?

    I'm sure it would be easy to find a number of cases where a sale falls through when you point out that the prospective purchaser won't be able to receive calls.

    On the subject of phone masts 'provably' causing a variety of symptoms, wasn't there a case in the last year or so that got thrown out because, while the residents had a raft of documented evidence of how they'd suffered various illnesses and ill effects since a transmitter went up, the company operating it was able to counter with evidence that it wasn't turned on and therefore could not be responsible?

    Ah, this is the one: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/11099.html (thought I'd seen it on here, but can't find anything from searching...)

    Steve.

  31. Keith T
    Grenade

    Horrible selfish goofs

    I don't doubt that 90% of these women own cell phones.

    They just want the infrastructure put elsewhere, to depress someone else's property values for their own convenience.

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