Potential apartment and radiation fears -High powered RADAR-

[gotsmack]

I went to look at an apartment today and it was pretty good, price was fair, and its really close to work. That is the problem.

I work in a compound where they have lots of communications equipment and maybe a pretty powerful radar system, I dunno but definately a very powerful communications system it sets off the radar detector whenever you drive by certain buildings on the compound and we have one of those giant golfball things that look like epcot center. There is also a lot of satellite stuff.


The place I looked at is in the middle of the block that starts right next to where the compound's property line ends. Should I find a different place or am I being paranoid?

also I've been at work for 6 months and I know of 2 people in my building (maybe 200 people) who are currently out on sick leave because of cancer, they've been working there for atleast 20 years though.

I'm not too worried about beiing dosed while I'm at work, because I'll be out in 5 years but I don;t want to risk being dosed 24/7.

anyone know what the decrease in strength of em radiation over a set distance from the source?


UPDATE 1: spoke with a friend he said that I don;t have to worry about the Golf Ball things since they don;t give off that much radiation. He said it was safer than living by high voltage power lines.

But he said they definately do RADAR testing in the area and wasn't sure about that.

Anyone know about the safety level of living by a high powered RADAR installation?

 

[imported_weadjust]

I would be more worried about going to work than the apartment.

 

[NuclearNed]

If the apartment is nice and the price is right, go for it. Everybody dies eventually.

 

[loup garou]

Jeez, hope you never set foot on a ship.

 

[K1052]

As long as none of the antennas are pointed at your house and they aren't playing catch with surplus plutonium pits on the front lawn you should be fine.

 

[Mark R]

I suspect you're just being paranoid.

There's no demonstrable link between low-level non-ionizing radiation exposure and illness. High-level exposures are different, and there are strict regulations about high-powered RADARs and other sources.

Cancer is a common illness (affecting up to 1 in 3 people), and even in the normal working age group is common (affecting around 4% of people of working age, each year). In other words, I'd expect 4 of your co-workers to have developed cancer in the time you were working there.

Em radiation nominally follows an inverse-square law. However, at some frequencies, due to reflections/ground/atmosphere effects the overall effect may be an inverse-cube.

 

[Rumpltzer]

You should be fine as long as you wear a tin foil hat while sleeping... which you should be doing anyway.

 

[Coquito]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
If the apartment is nice and the price is right, go for it. Everybody dies eventually.

Hahaha! :thumbsup:

 

[chusteczka]

You are not paranoid as others claim you may be since you are thinking clearly and logically. There are three rules to minimize radiation exposure

• Time,
• Distance, and
• Shielding.

Since you work next to an unshielded radiation source, it is logical to reduce exposure time and increase distance from the source.

IMO, find an apartment farther away from work.

The comment earlier regarding working on a ship is not equivalent to the current situation since a nuclear radiation source is heavily shielded and electromagnetic radiation is much less than the OP's situation due to shielding by the metal bulkheads of the ship and being located several hundred feet above most of the crew.

Additionally, tin foil hat arguments are typically childish, ignorant, and uninformed.

 

[chusteczka]

I have always wondered how people made double posts and now I know.
The darn browser/internet connection hiccupped on me.

 

[everman]

Most of the EM Radiation comming out of that place is being scattered by all of the buildings in the neighborhood, and most of it won't even get inside your building.
And that tin foil hat you're wearing may actually be amplifying what radiation there is, so take it off

 

[JRich]

The apartments probably just stapled aluminum to the drywall and painted over. It's that "texture" that you like so much

 

[badmouse]

How easy is it to find a place a bit farther away?

If this is your only option, go ahead - it's probably fine. Remember, you're working with the stuff all day anyway. This keeps the exposure more even. It's the spikes and up-and-downs that'll kill you.

Besides, you're more likely to die in a car accident, and the closer you live to work, the less time you'll spend in a car, the safer you are statistically. Go for it.

 

[gotsmack]

Originally posted by: badmouse
Remember, you're working with the stuff all day anyway. This keeps the exposure more even. It's the spikes and up-and-downs that'll kill you.

WHAT?!

I want to minimize exposure.

I don't work with the comm equipment. My group does the money and planning.

 

[everman]

Well at least you won't have to waste money on birth control products.

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
If the apartment is nice and the price is right, go for it. Everybody dies eventually.

QFT

 

[gotsmack]

UPDATE 1: spoke with a friend he said that I don;t have to worry about the Golf Ball things since they don;t give off that much radiation. He said it was safer than living by high voltage power lines.

But he said they definately do RADAR testing in the area and wasn't sure about that.

Anyone know about the safety level of living by a high powered RADAR installation?

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Rumpltzer
You should be fine as long as you wear a tin foil hat while sleeping... which you should be doing anyway.

Bastard! You beat me to it.

you can use the inverse-square law to figure out how much radiation is getting to your building from work, but I doubt it'll be much. Unless they have some sort of directional setup pointed directly at your apartment...

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: gotsmack
UPDATE 1: spoke with a friend he said that I don;t have to worry about the Golf Ball things since they don;t give off that much radiation. He said it was safer than living by high voltage power lines.

But he said they definately do RADAR testing in the area and wasn't sure about that.

Anyone know about the safety level of living by a high powered RADAR installation?

MarkR pretty much said it all. But seriously, if you have that much of a problem with it, why do you even work there? I doubt they conduct a lot of testing after work hours so I don't see what the problem is living nearby if you work there. I have never heard of anyone considering a radar array to be a radiation source. That would be the same as lumping cell phones, GPS, wireless LAN into radiation sources. They are low frequency EM generators and really is nothing different from what we are already inundated with. If they did pose a public health hazard, they would be shielded accordingly. Places like Argonne Labs or FermiLab have particle accelerators and nuclear waste labs, but the radiation exposure outside those labs is far less than what you receive naturally. But again, the stuff the typical hazardous radiation that they worry about is on a whole other scale than radar.