I read with interest your feature story on the proliferation of cell phone antennas and concerns with public health expressed by neighbors in the immediate area surrounding them [“Antenna Invasion,” July 23]. As both a cell phone user and an expert in the field of radio and antennas, I am dismayed by the inability of the writer to separate scientific facts from ignorance.
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First, my qualifications. I am an electrical engineer and was first licensed by the FCC to operate and maintain broadcast transmitters in 1959 (First Class Radiotelephone). After graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1964 (BSEE), where my undergraduate thesis was on transmitting antennas, I worked briefly for Motorola’s two-way-radio division and taught at DeVry for five years, including courses on antenna systems. I have since made my living designing sound systems for public places, among them Wrigley Field, the United Terminal at O’Hare, Northwestern’s Ryan Field, the Old Town School of Folk Music, and the Jazz Showcase. I was recently elected a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. I also consult on electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and am vice-chair of the Audio Engineering Society Standards Committee’s working group on EMC. EMC is, in essence, the science of understanding and limiting the interference between electronic equipment, as well as other undesired effects.
(2) As energy radiates outward from any antenna, it spreads out over an increasingly wider area, and its strength falls off twice as fast as the distance from it (mathematically, as the square of the distance). That means that the strength of the energy at 100 feet from the antenna is 1/100th of the energy at 10 feet, the energy at 320 feet is 1/1000th the energy at ten feet, and so on.
One final point. I have considerable technical competence in professional audio and acoustics, as well as in radio systems. My wife is a scientist working in the pharmaceutical industry. It is painfully common for us to see technical issues within our fields of expertise covered in the general press by journalists who are completely unqualified to report on them. There is far more to journalism than getting everyone’s name right and reporting conflicting points of view on an issue without regard to the validity or technical accuracy of those points of view. It is irresponsible and unprofessional of you, or for any publication, to report on an issue without reasonable competence on the subject, both on the part of the authors and the editors, or without peer review by those who are technically competent. I’ve been an avid reader of the Reader since its inception, and I would be the last to say that you’re worse than average in this regard–I’ve read plenty of incompetent “journalism” on technical topics in publications as diverse as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports, and the Chicago Tribune.
