Radiation trepidation

>> The ins and outs of baking your brain with cell phones

by MICHAEL CITROME

While scares about mobile phones have centred on distracted drivers engaged in animated conversation swerving randomly into pedestrians, other concerns stem from the phone technology itself.

Every mobile phone, whether using the older analog cellular system, or the new digital PCS standard, works as a miniature radio transmitter. Because its signal is only designed to go as far as the nearest cellular antenna, the strength is kept low--which is a good thing, because your head is absorbing all that RF (Radio Frequency) radiation. In large enough doses, this could cause cancer.

But are cell phones actually a health risk? If anyone knows, they're not telling. Scientists say there's no proven link between cell phones and human health, but rats constantly exposed to higher than average doses of RF show elevated cancer levels and memory loss. And this is enough to give the paranoid among us another reason to wonder if maybe last month's cell phone purchase wasn't such a bright idea.

Becoming radioactive

The FCC, the U.S. government organization in charge of regulating most electric devices and broadcast media, has put in place a scheme that will require mobile phone manufacturers to put warning labels on the boxes of their phones, like the warnings on cigarette packs. Within the next six months, manufacturers will have to display the phone's SAR (Specific Absorbed Radiation), which says how much RF energy the phone is pumping into your head.

SAR numbers are calculated using a simple formula: the amount of radiation being produced, in watts, divided by the mass of what's absorbing it, in kilograms. What seems like a sterile, scientific formula becomes unnerving when your brain is part of the calculations.

The FCC limit for a safe SAR is 1.6 watts per kilogram, and even the most powerful mobile phones don't reach that level. SAR is basically a reflection of how powerful a phone's signal is. In order for a phone to have a crystal-clear connection, it needs to send and receive a strong signal. Although there are other tricks that can be used to achieve this quality, such as switching frequencies, it really comes down to the power of the transmitter. And while shielding and innovative design can keep the antenna further away from the user's head, inevitably that's where most of the radiation ends up.

Nokia's highest power output phones have SARs in the neighbourhood of 0.94, and that's for a phone using the GSM standard, common in Europe, but not used here in Canada. The FCC is currently gathering exact SAR data on all phones sold in the U.S., but you can get a clear idea of how much RF radiation a phone emits by looking at its power rating.

The more powerful the phone is, the more radiation is produced. Despite this, the mobile phone industry claims that consumers don't need to know phones' specific SAR ratings, because they're within legal safety limits.

What's safest?

Although the FCC has yet to release SAR numbers, except for a few phones hitting the market now, several independent reports have been released in the last few years.

Here's a rundown of the popular phones offered by the big four mobile providers, and their likelihood of causing you to one day be the parent of children who can read at night by their own glow.

Sanyo (used by Clearnet) and Samsung (used by Bell Mobility) are two Korean brands that have not made their radiation levels public. Ditto with U.S.-based phone makers Qualcomm (Bell Mobility and Clearnet) and Audiovox (Clearnet).

But the most popular phones in Montreal are made by Nokia, and are sold by all four of the wireless providers, Bell Mobility, Rogers AT&T, Clearnet and Fido. According to www.bemi.se, a leading microwave information Web site, Nokia phones have midrange SARs, with the popular 6100 series rated at 0.87.

Ericsson phones, offered by Fido as well as Rogers AT&T, fare slightly better than Nokia, the SARs of most falling between 0.42 and 0.88.

The popular Motorola StarTAC phones have the best ratings overall, between 0.10 and 0.38. Offered here only by Bell Mobility, these tiny phones are priced higher than their competitors, but produce such little radiation in comparison, that they may become the new standard--and one that people won't be quite as afraid of. :

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