WiFi transmission danger ?

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ExSp33db1rd
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WiFi transmission danger ?

#1 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Wed Oct 09, 2019 7:38 am

WiFi transmission around the house - any danger ?

My question is .... once plugged in, working, and severely left alone for months on end, is a WiFi modem constantly flooding the house with Alien Electrons likely to cause cancer, or croup or similar afflictions, as is suggested by those who live near the modern mobile cellphone towers now pouring out constant 4G, and threatened to switch to 5G before too long, with all sorts of dire predictions for the taking over of our digital lives, or does a WiFi Modem only transmit a signal when there is a 'request' from ones' computer, like when one switches it on in the morning for the rest of the day and asks it to connect to a docile modem that in our case is only turned off if leaving home for a long period ? i.e. although we switch off our computers every night, the only time we interrupt electrical supply to the Modem is when it sometimes objects to provide the contracted service, at which point a brief 2 minute rest by pulling out the plug seems to revitalise it.

We are about to be Fibre Optic wired for Internet in a new abode that we will shortly occupy, and have to decide whether to have all the associated impedimentia located near enough to have two computers hard-wired to the modem, or rely on a WiFi signal for both, or maybe only one, of them, in which case will this increase the real and present danger from constant electronic transmissions ?

My opinion is that once switched on a Modem floods the house with sufficient WiFi signal to blast through most walls and ceilings in reasonable distance, so although we presently only have the adjacent desktop hard wired to it, my laptop and associated iPads work adequately whenever and wherever we demand them, so are we under a permanent torrent of the WiFi stuff, but does it matter ?

It's all too much for an 85yr. old brain to cope with. Will pop outside and see if there is a passing 5 year old.

Thanks for any opinion.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#2 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:18 am

There was a time when all modems were sold without encryption. You needed to know how to open the modem software to set a password. Few people bothered.

There existed a 'game ' called war walking. You could drive around and pick up signals from every router that was transmitting. That answers part of your question.

I could drive around, a GPS plugged into my laptop and Auto Route running. The machine would be pinging continually and you could plot these open connections. This was before 'always on ' so some days a modem might be off.

People could therefore use your paid for connection for free WiFi.

Modern routers are automatically encrypted but now operate at 2,400 and 5,000 KHz but, allegedly at such low power that it is 'safe'.

In contrast we operated the V-bomber radar, can't remember the power, unrestricted and it radiated at 9,375 MHz. However in the 80s we religiously avoided radiating ground crew near the AEW radars on the Shackleton or E3.

So the other question, is it harmful? Probably yes to susceptible individuals, say those that can see CO2.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#3 Post by Boac » Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:01 am

AFAIK, exsp, there is no 'hazard' additional to the normal radiation we (well, apart from thems in far-flung bunduland) all experience all the time. Mobile, TV, radio, 4g, scary stuff from kit in the house. Don't worry! It's up to you whether you go 'hard-wired' or wireless - speeds will be better - but I think you will regret the lack of wi-fi at some point.

PN's bit about security endorsed - and not just for wi-fi either - change the router access! (Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean............ :)) )

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#4 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:39 am

The only evidence for health effects so far are:
A barely detectable increase in minor cancers in male rats (but not female rats or mice), when exposed to 4x current limits for humans
A slight increase in minor ear cancers in humans on the side they use a mobile phone, but also a decrease on the other side so the average remains the same.
Both of these results are statistically significant, but only just.
The WHO has classified wifi-type RF radiation as "Possibly carcinogenic to humans"
The physics, as far as we know, is that the frequencies involved are non-ionizing, and therefore the damage is only likely to come from high absorption rates causing excessive heating.
The new 5G networks will have substantially higher frequencies (24 GHz - 90 GHz vs 0.9 GHz - 5 GHz now), there will be many more towers, but each will be much smaller and less powerful. Since the reason for more towers is that the radiation is absorbed by things like trees, we know that our cells will be absorbing the energy. However, there is no reason to think this will lead to an increased risk of cancer. That said, such a major change in wifi signaling ought to have tests done, and to the best of my knowledge they aren't being done. The control of government by big business is such that nothing is done which might jeopardise increased profits, as we see with Boeing.

As with all forms of radiation, reducing power of transmission and time of exposure, and increasing distance from the transmitter, reduce the exposure. The exposure is reduced by a factor of 4 by each doubling of the distance from the transmitter (the router or computer).
Personally, I prefer hardwiring as there are no dropouts, and others using the wifi get full capacity. It may not be easy to hardwire your house.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#5 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Oct 09, 2019 12:04 pm

And impossible to hard wire an iPad or Kindle etc.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#6 Post by Rwy in Sight » Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:03 pm

Not forgetting the humble Android mobile or tablet. I tried the cable connection when moved in the current apartment and I turned it down because the mobile was left out.

In my previous apartment an engineer living on the lower floor came knocking the door and checking whether my router/modem was emitting the strong signal in his apartment where his very young baby was.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#7 Post by Sisemen » Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:08 pm

This scare about 5G will instantly crumble once the “woke” generation get their hands on it. It will be unstoppable.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#8 Post by Boac » Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:09 pm

The only evidence for health effects so far are:
A barely detectable increase in minor cancers in male rats
- hmm - that might thin out the forum........ :))

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#9 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:34 pm

My thoughts too Ratty

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#10 Post by OFSO » Thu Oct 10, 2019 3:39 pm

I believe a small increase in penile dimensions has been found in men with WiFi installed in their bedrooms.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#11 Post by Rwy in Sight » Thu Oct 10, 2019 3:56 pm

OFSO wrote:
Thu Oct 10, 2019 3:39 pm
I believe a small increase in penile dimensions has been found in men with WiFi installed in their bedrooms.
They get a frequent work out

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#12 Post by Boac » Thu Oct 10, 2019 4:10 pm

Does one have to be complete prick to benefit or can you be circumlocated?

I'm worried about this '5g' thing - I use to start to grey out at a sustained 4g =))

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#13 Post by boing » Tue Oct 22, 2019 3:04 pm

I prefer wired systems because I think they are more reliable but with the latest few generations of mobile computers, as you no doubt know, the good old network port has disappeared.

Since we are now committed to wireless systems we have to consider the old "inverse square" law. If you double your distance from a transmitter the power at your new location is now one fourth of the original power not one half as you may expect. The practical implication of this is that if you stick a cellphone to your ear you are subjecting your body to the maximum amount of radiated energy that you can possibly receive short of getting a cellphone implant. If you were to use a cellphone headset on a decent length of cable you would receive less radiation (but if you used a bluetooth connection you will see less reduction). The same rule would apply to WiFi. If your WiFi modem is right above your computer desk you will get a certain amount of radiation, if you took your laptop and sat in an easy chair by the fire you would get less radiation from the WiFi modem but, of course, you would get the same amount of radiation from your computer. The answer is that if you want to reduce radiation by any amount then get as far away as you can from the actual transmitter element whilst still having a usable signal. I suppose that if you wanted to really reduce unwanted wireless radiation you could use a wired headset with your cellphone, work well away from your WiFi modem and not use your laptop actually on your lap. You could use a remote keyboard and monitor so that you would be close to the controls but the transmitter itself could be a couple of extra feet away from you. It may help. who knows? Nowadays even your refrigerator or alarm system could be feeding you radiation.

At a certain site where we were installing some wireless controlled equipment we had a few problems so we made a site survey using special test equipment, we were amazed how electronically noisy the site was even though we were quite a distance from the nearest habitation. The apparent answer was that the nearest habitation was a very affluent community and it had an unusually high number of wireless operated appliances which operated on or near our control frequency. No idea how this effected the people that lived there.

A big part of the answer to reducing unwanted radiation is to make the RECEIVER more sensitive so that less transmitter power is required. This is actually being done by various electronic and software means.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#14 Post by llondel » Tue Oct 22, 2019 3:38 pm

boing wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 3:04 pm
I prefer wired systems because I think they are more reliable but with the latest few generations of mobile computers, as you no doubt know, the good old network port has disappeared.
I have a USB->ethernet dongle I use on laptops that came without a port of their own.
A big part of the answer to reducing unwanted radiation is to make the RECEIVER more sensitive so that less transmitter power is required. This is actually being done by various electronic and software means.
You eventually run into the signal-to-noise ratio, so for a given level of background noise, you're stuck with a particular max usable receiver sensitivity for your application. This is also why it's often better for a school to have a phone mast nearby - the field strength locally is probably relatively low, and it means that if kids are using their phones, the phones wind their transmit power right down because they don't need it. If the mast is a mile away then the phones will be putting out more energy to make the distance.

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Re: WiFi transmission danger ?

#15 Post by boing » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:35 pm

Llondel,

Absolutely correct. I was trying to keep things simple.

We have a non-critical application that rarely gets any interference but we use something we call the semi-automatic re-transmission mode. This is based on the fact that if nothing happens when the user presses a button they will press it again, again and again probably four or five times in a rapid succession. So we have a re-transmission mode that is not software based. :YMAPPLAUSE: :YMAPPLAUSE:

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