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Comment Ham radio bands (Score 0, Flamebait) 105

Ham radio operators have a lot of space allocated on the UHF/SHF bands. It is quite diffifcult to justify this allocation, given the fact that these frequencies are mostly left unused (if you do not believe this, just turn on a spectrum analyzer and give a look). Reallocating a part of these frequencies to wireless carriers could bring benefits to the whole US population, reducing the digital divide.

Comment Re:I am still skeptical (Score 1) 180

You probably lack some knowledge about effects of EM fields on tissues. The damage possibly caused by RF fields generated by mobile phone is due to heathing, not to ionization.
BTW, most of the damage caused to tissues exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation is still due to heathing. Damage due to chemical effects caused by ionization and to DNA damage appear later in those who received exposure to ionizing radiation.

Comment I am still skeptical (Score 2) 180

I looked briefly to some of the reports published by MTHR, and it seems to me that there is a fundamental flaw (pretty much common to many studies published on this topic). The absorbed dose from the tissues is proportional to the transmitter power. Now the transmission power of handeld devices (like GSM) depends from the received SNR at the BTS: actually a negotiation about the power to use takes place between the BTS and the handeld device to limit the transmission power, so that batteries of the handeld unit last more and interference to neighbour BTS cells is reduced. IIRC power can be varied between 1 milliwatt and 8 watt, i.e. three orders of magnitude. If this enormous variation of the radiated power (and of the absorbed dose) hasn't been taken into account in the study (as I suspect), the research conclusions are very questionable.

Comment This happened many years ago in France (Score 3, Funny) 243

In a small french town (I don't remember which one, the story appeared in the newspaper about forty years ago) a bookstore owner had the habit of sending by mail books to people living close to his store. The book was accompanied by a note saying: "For evaluation. If not interested please return".
A contractor was very annoyed by this, so one night he poured a ton of gravel in front of the bookstore, and he put a sign on the top of it saying: "For evaluation. If not interested please return.".

Comment Re:Try the NSA (Score 1) 79

Totally agree. Ham radio has become one of the most boring things one can do in his spare time.
Years ago I was into it, and I was developing some advanced DSP stuff (sort of what is known now as software defined radio, but the algorithms I was using were different and better performing than those used by radio amateurs). As I started leaking some details about what I was developing, I suddenly realized that radio amateurs were not interested into experimenting new technologies: they just wanted to buy high tech toys. So I gave up everything: I wanted people to learn science, not how to fill up a check and buy a pre-built kit. I heartily suggest you to invest your skills and your spare time into something that is much more useful than ham radio. For example I give science seminars in the high school and serve in the board of a nationwide science association, just look around: there are plenty of opportunities.

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