Hi all

In the recent past, our Court of Appeal Judges have disobeyed a direct order from the Chief Justice on moving to the new offices in Elgon House in Upper Hill area...

Their defiance is led by their fear of contracting cancer ailment due to the radiation exposure from the cellular telecommunication antenna masts right next to the building...

Are the judges fears founded or they are just whining for the sake of it and do not want to relocate to the new offices??? Let us find out...

The cell antennas mounted on the telecommunication towers transmit in the frequency range of 869 - 894 MHz (CDMA), 935 - 960 MHz (GSM900) and 1810 – 1880 MHz (GSM1800). Also, recently 3G has been deployed in a few towns, in whose base station antenna transmits in the frequency range of 2110 – 2170 MHz.

Usually for efficient and effective transmission, the mobile phone operators divide a particular region into a large number of cells. Each cell is subsequently divided into a number of sectors. The transmitter base stations are normally configured to transmit different signals into each of these sectors. The base stations are connected to directional antennas which are mounted on buildings roof tops or on free standing communication mast.

A base station and its transmitting power are designed in such a way that mobile phone should be able to transmit and receive enough signal for proper communication up to a few kilometers.
Majority of these towers are mounted near the residential and office buildings to provide good
mobile phone coverage to the users. These cell towers transmit radiation throughout, so people living within 10’s of meters from the tower will receive 10,000 to 10,000,000 times stronger signal than required for mobile communication.

Consider a GSM900 signal transmission in the range 935-960MHz. The frequency band of 960 – 935 = 25MHz is divided into say ten sub-bands of 2.5MHz which are allocated to Safaricom, Airtel, Orange, Yu and any other future mobile phone operator by the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK). There may be several carrier frequencies (may be 1 to 5) allotted to one operator with an upper limit of about 6.0MHz bandwidth. Each carrier frequency may transmit between 10 to 20 Watts of power. This means that the operator having several carrier frequencies may transmit 50 to 100 Watts of power. Assuming that each of the local mobile operators have several carrier frequencies and have antennas in the same roof or tower then the total power transmitted is in the range of 200 to 400 Watts. In addition since directional antennas used by mobile operators have a gain of about 17dB (numeric value is 50) meaning that the power transmitted in the main beam direction is several KiloWatts effectively!!!

So having this basic knowledge in mind, are our Court of Appeal Judges justified in their refusal to move to the new offices in Elgon House?...Let us see…

The location of the telecommunications mast is just next to the building about 10 metres!!! The length of this building is about 40 metres and the width is about 20 metres.

Consider a Judge seated at a point near the mast (say 15m from the antenna) at the horizontal beam level.

Radiated Microwave Power Density = P = P(t) x G(t)/(4πR2) Watts. Where P(t) is Transmitter power in Watts G(t) is Gain of transmitting antenna and R is the distance from the antenna to the judge.

Power density P = (20W x 50)/(4 x 3.14 x 15 x 15) = 0.353W/m2

This is power for a single carrier by one operator. Let us assume that each of the mobile operators has at least 2 frequency carriers, then the total power density is effectively 0.706 W/m2.

Let us assume that all the four mobile operators have antennas here which are all operational, the radiated power density at the judge location is 2.82W/m2 which is about 10 times higher than the safety recommended value of 0.24w/m2.

To help understand the lethal situation the 2.82W/m2 value of radiation power density means, let us consider a judge working from 8.00am to 17.00pm (8 hours) in that building.

If we model the judge’s body as a cylinder, then his area will be 1.436 square meter (average height 5'6" = 1.67 m and waist 34" = 86 cm).

Power received by the judge is = Power density x Surface area of the judge

Power received by the judge = 2.82W/m2 x 1.436m2 = 4.05Watts

In one hour, microwave energy absorbed will be 4.05Watts x 3600 = 14.6 KW-sec

In 8 hours the power absorbed by the judge is 14.6 x 8 = 116.8KW-sec.

A typical microwave oven has a rating of 900W, and with say 60% efficiency, microwave power output is approximately 540 W. This implies that the judge’s body can safely be kept in a microwave oven for 116.8 KW-sec / 540 W = 216 seconds = 4 minutes per day!!!!

The question is how many people would be willing to be put into a microwave for a period of 4 long minutes roasting each day of their lives for so many years??? And that is what we want our judges to do!!

Believe me folk, this is just but a tip of the ice-berg…the juicy part will be coming soon especially for those of us who think that having a cellular telecommunications antenna mast on the roof of their houses/flats or their tenants residences 24 hours a day 7 days a week is something to be happy about…

The sad thing is the mobile phone operators will never tell you the hazards that go with the microwave radiation associated with these close cellular telecommunications antenna masts and they have never provided any antenna data (the antenna characteristics and properties) on the antennas that they install and their radiation patterns…All they tell the “victims to be” is “we will pay you lots of money for hosting our mast in your premises” which incidentally they pay!!!

If you don't mind please, if you have lived near a cellular telecommunication antenna mast within 20m range, do you remember or know of someone who has succumbed to cancer or cancer related ailments within that range in the past 8 to 12 years???

Yayayayayai!!!I have never looked at these telecommunications antennas this way plus the dangers that go along with them.

On a serious note could this partly explain why cancer cases have increased considerably in the cities over the last couple of years and we are always told that it is because of our eating habits??!!!

This is very depressing.

Yes, it could be the case and people either don't care about it or don't know and do not want to know.

You see the fellow who built the office block cared less about the environment under which the tenants would operate in. All that mattered to him was the money.

The authorities (read CCK and former NCC) did not conduct any microwave radiation audit in order to ascertain if the area around the masts is habitable or not...

My fear is many people have been roasting slowly without their knowledge and when they know it, it is already too late...yet the sad thing is they still don't know what is roasting them...

I think just like multinational drugs manufacturers don't want us to know the lethal effects of some of their drugs being used, it seems it is the same case here.

As @Kaigangio puts it, the mobile operators have never submitted any antenna data on the antennas being used so that we can make an informed choice on whether the masts should be erected near residential areas. Why is this?

Thanks @kagizzard for the info.

My neighbour has one of those masts right inside his inside his compound.

How about the multichoice dishes? Take a block of apartments with twenty hoses and a similar number of satelite dishes. Ama the emission is negligible?

How does the number of reported cases compare to the number of cell phone users world wide, I will use Ole Lenku's words....insignificant!!!

Reminds me of when anti radition stickers were being sold in Nairobi and many Kenyans were rushing for them and bandikaing them on his/her phone. The fact is the alarmist reports are always the most spread in this world, the facts exist out there but nobody wanna spread the same:

Non-ionizing radio frequency radiation from mobile phones, electric power transmission, and other similar sources have been described as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. However, studies have not found a consistent link between cell phone radiation and cancer risk.[

What about wi-fi which is everywhere nowadays, in offices, homes, cafes, pubs, malls, matatus, buses etc?

@McReggae

I agree completely. Watu should stop spreading alarmist info based on little or no data without correlation. While mobile telephony has its own cons, no one has proven any of the allegations peddled against it especially when used outdoors. While its a fact that if you stand directly in front of a Microwave Antenna at high power you will be fried literary by the main lobe. The same is not true for the side lobes which have less power less radiation.

I'm glad they did that. What about the 'powerless' people in that vicinity? Who would have considered their interests?