Well, I'm no doctor but I can give you a few hard calculations on the electronics side of things:
- In Europe anyway, the maximum power output on access points comes in at about a tenth of a watt. (A mobile phone on the other hand can pump out 2W no problem.)
- Double the distance from a normal antenna and the field strength drops by about a factor of 4. Even with directional antennas you can look at it dropping by a factor of 2 (and that's being generous!)
So, if you're 12m away from a directional access point for around 6 hours a day and worried, you better start getting paranoid about using a mobile phone against your skull for more than a second a day, because mathematically speaking that's around 10 times worse!
You can probably tell from the above I think the so called health risks associated with wi-fi access points and the like are quite simply a load of rubbish!
The tenth of a watt figure came from a reputable magazine in the UK which is where I'm getting that figure from, certainly seems about right to me. There is absolutely NO scientific evidence to suggest there is any link at all to mobile phone masts, mobile phones, wifi access points etc. causing cancer. Yes people that use phones and sit near access points will get cancer, it's a sad and unfortunate fact of life though - and personally I don't believe that it makes the slightest bit of difference whether you sit near an access point for a day or not.
Getting burns from climbing right up a mast or similar wouldn't surprise me, and yes if you stayed up there long enough or regularly enough I wouldn't be surprised if the chances of you getting cancer were significantly increased!
But I'm assuming 99.99% of people don't pull those sorts of stunts, and given normal usage I for one am pretty convinced they're safe.
Its not just the power output that you should be worrying about either its the frequencies . However im personally on the side of scientists saying that wi-fi antennas and phones are almost always safe and even if not im using them anyway something got to kill you after allWell, I'm no doctor but I can give you a few hard calculations on the electronics side of things:
- In Europe anyway, the maximum power output on access points comes in at about a tenth of a watt. (A mobile phone on the other hand can pump out 2W no problem.)
- Double the distance from a normal antenna and the field strength drops by about a factor of 4. Even with directional antennas you can look at it dropping by a factor of 2 (and that's being generous!)
So, if you're 12m away from a directional access point for around 6 hours a day and worried, you better start getting paranoid about using a mobile phone against your skull for more than a second a day, because mathematically speaking that's around 10 times worse!
You can probably tell from the above I think the so called health risks associated with wi-fi access points and the like are quite simply a load of rubbish!
Its not just the power output that you should be worrying about either its the frequencies . However im personally on the side of scientists saying that wi-fi antennas and phones are almost always safe and even if not im using them anyway something got to kill you after all
There are however people out there who have been proven to be extra sensetive to RF waves and can get headaches to unbearable levels when they are exposed to such rays