OCEANSIDE — There are more than 60 cell phone tower sites in Oceanside and with the high demand for cell phone service, more sites can be expected. To streamline the process to approve cell phone
tower installation, the Telecommunications Ad Hoc Committee met on March 26 to update the Design Guidelines for Cellular Facilities.
Cell phone tower sites are good business for Oceanside. Carriers pay a fee to property owners when they install a site that houses numerous cell phone towers.
Sites clustered on city property can bring in sizable revenues.
“It can be very significant,” Robert Ross, telecommunications chair, said. Ross compares potential cell phone tower site revenues to the annual $3.4 million in Cox Communication franchise fees that the city collects.
Some residents voiced concern about numerous cell phone towers going in close to homes and schools. Oceanside resident Nancy Gregory said she can see at least 75 cell phone antennas from her home in south Oceanside.
Oceanside residents Gregory and Holly Hargett said they are worried about the safety of residents living near clusters of cell phone towers and prefer sites to be located away from residential areas. “The jury is still out on health risks,” Gregory Hargett said.
Another concern is the lack of information
on carrier operations. Residents have observed adjustments being made to towers under the cover of night. Some question whether carriers are paying the required fee when they add additional towers to a site.
Ross said about 25 percent of the cell phone tower sites are in residential areas and residents who live by the sites are safe.
There is danger if people have direct contact with the towers, Ross said. The FCC requires warning signs and fencing to be put around towers to keep people away from direct contact with nonaccumulative radio frequency waves.
Since the waves are nonaccumulative, being around more of them is not a danger unless the waves intersect, Ross said. Carriers make sure this does not happen because intersecting waves cancel each other out and do not provide service. The FCC also has guidelines on the radius and directionality of wave transmission that prevents wave intersection. When carriers adjust the direction of cell phone tower transmission they must stay within the permitted guidelines.
The more cell phone towers there are in an area the shorter their allowed transmission radius. This makes radio frequency waves safer and cell phone reception better, Ross said.
The ad hoc committee is developing a mapping grid and database of cell phone tower sites. Once the database is developed the city will request that cell phone providers submit information on their operations and radio frequency transmissions. The FCC oversees cell phone tower regulations. The city will collect information to check that tower transmissions and paid fees fit regulations.
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This statement is TRUE – I am a dispatch operator
AS FOR 911 calls you ought to be ashamed. WHAT the industry does not tell anyone that PER LAW, with or without a contract if your battery is charged one can still make a 911 call. AS well the last time I was on campus they told me to use a land line or call box for emergencies, because a wireless phone call is routed up to 3 different locations in this area, and can take up to 6 minutes to properly connect to a local 911 operator or dispatcher unit!!!
Read more: Coast News Group – Cell tower guidelines updated
Sorry, Kindly, but you are wrong (the contraction, by the way, is "you’re," not "your") on the call to the hospital from the ambulance. How do I know? I’ve been in no less than 4 ambulances in the past 2 years (not by choice), and in each case, the medic phoned the hospital en route. And oh by the way, these were in different states.
http://www.ocafn.org
The implications of continuous RF is scientifically studied and the proof is the industry extremely underestimates the actual RF at each site!!
We must work to protect our lives as much as possible, the cities are to PROTECT ITS CITIZENS.
Repeal FCC ACT 1996 section 704 which takes our right to health and safe environments!!!!
The FCC set standards and have been told per the EPA they need to do further findings on the health of RF NON THERMAL!!
THE FCC STANDARDS ONLY TAKE CARE OF THERMAL EFFECTS!
Dear Frequent Commenter,
You are so wrong with your points! Regardless of capacity and smaller antennas, the ratio of RF will be the same and instead spread out evenly over human lives. So you have a cluster which have an accumulative effect of RF. So spread them out and you still have the same amount of radiation just now you are going to effect everyone! Shame on you and the industry.
This is just a new century and is a repeat of the tobacco industry all over.
AS FOR 911 calls you ought to be ashamed. WHAT the industry does not tell anyone that PER LAW, with or without a contract if your battery is charged one can still make a 911 call. AS well the last time I was on campus they told me to use a land line or call box for emergencies, because a wireless phone call is routed up to 3 different locations in this area, and can take up to 6 minutes to properly connect to a local 911 operator or dispatcher unit!!!
Also paramedics are not on the phone with any DR. while in an ambulance – YOUR SUCH A LIAR!
LIVING under RF low frequency or high for 24/7 hours does have an effect NOT THERMALLY, and those RF levels set per the FCC are only for THERMAL EFFECTS.
Perhaps you are a disgruntled wireless rep.
http://www.emrpolicy.org/litigation/case_law/docs/noi_epa_response.pdf
However, exposure that comply with the FCC’s guidelines generally have been represented as “safe” by many of the RF system operators and service providers who must comply with them, even though there is uncertainty about possible risk from non thermal, intermittent exposures that may continue for years.
Norbert Hankin Center for Science and Risk Assessment Radiation Protection Division. I have also enclosed a letter written in June of 199. To Mr. Richard Tell, Chair , IEEE SCC28 (SC4) Risk Assessment Work Group, in which the members of the Radiofrequency Interagency Work Group (RFIAWG) identified certain issues that they had determined NEEDED to be addressed in order to provide a strong and credible rationale to support RF exposure guidelines.
Electromagnetic energy drops off in frequency geometrically as the distance from the source increases. (Try toasting marshmallows from the other side of the campsite.) Cell phones have to send out more energy, usually through the user’s brain, the further the phone is from the tower. if you really are worried about the effects of radio frequency emissions, you should try to be as close as possible to the tower. (Actually "towers" are becoming increasingly rare because capacity requirements mean cells need to be smaller. Antennas at the top of a "tower" create too large a footprint or cell. That’s why the trend is toward more lower height, lower powered antennas.)
The other thing that isn’t mentioned in the story is that without cellphone coverage, hundreds, if not thousands of lives would be lost every year. Half of all 911 calls come from cell phones. If you are injured or lost and there’s no payphone or landline you can use nearby, how are you going to call for help? Do you really want to risk a dropped call when the paramedic is on the phone with the doctor trying to keep you or a loved one alive in an ambulance on the way to the hospital?
If you’re really worried about the impact of electromagnetic emissions, your biggest concern should be adequate sunscreen when you go to the beach. Melanoma IS a proven risk. Having a cellular base station nearby has never been shown to be a risk at all. The frequencies cell phones use are completely different in terms of how they affect living tissues from things like xrays and gamma radiation. They are not only lower down the spectrum than visible light, they are lower down than the infrared portion of the spectrum (such as heat lamps and warming one’s hands in front of the fire). Just like fire, you can get too hot if you get too close. Rainbows, after all, are made up of thermonuclear energy.
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