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Re: [TowerTalk] Protecting Aluminum Antennas

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Protecting Aluminum Antennas
From: "Roger (K8RI) on TT" <K8RI-on-TowerTalk@tm.net>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2016 20:02:23 -0400
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
The comment was probably made in jest, but cancer in rats bears little resemblance toward humans. Often the animals are exposed to high concentrations the humans. I take rat poison as a blood thinner, yet the same dose would be fatal to rats, so I have little faith in what some chemical does to small animals.

As a kid, I had a strong interest in chemistry. I had two pint bottle of mercury that I experimented with. At age 50, I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in CS, not CIS and did well enough to become a graduate assistant for my masters, so apparently the mercury had little effect. That mercury is bad stuff there is no doubt. Lead OTOH should not be ingested by infants, but for adults? When I was shooting competitive, I was going through about 500# every 2 months. I remember the freight depot calling my folks and saying, please have him come and take this stuff away.

As a teen, I dynamited stumps and rocks for the neighboring farmers. If a farmer found some old dynamite, they'd call me to get rid of it. What I didn't like was disposing of old 60% sticks that were in a puddle of oil, because that wasn't oil. I still own the farm, but I doubt I'd even be able to get a powder license, nor do I have need for one. A. I used a lot of it.

But getting to ham radio and non ionizing radiation.. For a good many years, I worked with RF heating generators in the 100 to well over 200 KW within a few feet of the heating/load coils. We as hams have to observe some rather stringent limitations. I had a pair of 12L Yagis at 130 feet. When running FM. or AM, I was limited to only a couple hundred watts. My tribander at a little over 100 feet had to be that high for the protected area. A 6' individual was just under a foot from radiation considered too high, yet people with cell phones and hams with a 5W HT exceed these limitations regularly, We know, non ionizing radiation causes heating, but from what I've read, the limits are arbitrary and in Europe they have much lower allowable limits. How do they determine what is really dangerous and then cut that to some limit.

My degree is in CS with a math minor. Lots of calc based physics and a couple years of chemistry. I do think society over reacts to many chemicals and many of the alarms do come from California.

That some chemicals causes a reaction in small animals often bears little reality as to what it would do to humans.
Many of these limits sound more like propaganda to me.

73

Roger (K8RI)


On 3/19/2016 Saturday 4:15 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
On Sat,3/19/2016 12:57 PM, EZ Rhino wrote:
It was probably banned because it caused cancer in laboratory rats in California.

On what basis do you say that? That sounds like uninformed propaganda to me. And are you saying that stuff that causes cancer is OK? Is it OK to put lead and mercury in places where humans can injest it?

My wife and I are both scientists, she in the area of human biology and me an EE. I DO believe in science and the scientific method, and I do NOT repeat uninformed gossip.

73, Jim K9YC
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73

Roger (K8RI)


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