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The Body Electric
be expected. The peak human resonant frequency lies right in the mid-
dle of the VHF television band.
Many people live in zones of higher-than-average risk. Levels rise
steeply from 1 microwatt within half a mile of most radio stations. Near
"antenna farms" like the forest of transmitters on Mount Wilson on the
outskirts of Los Angeles, the densities can reach well into the thousands.
They regularly go up to about 7 microwatts near microwave relay tow-
ers, which are often placed in the center of towns. Exposure to 100
microwatts is not uncommon within half a mile of military or airport
radar towers. Office workers in tall buildings are often in direct line
with microwave beams, whose intensities may reach 30 to 180 micro-
watts, as measured in a recent EPA survey. CB radios and walkie-talkies
bombard users, especially their heads and chests, with thousands of mi-
crowatts. These figures, of course, represent only single sources, not the
MICROWAVE EXPOSURE FROM WALKIE-TALKIE
Although
most
people's
absorption
doesn't
approach
the
Schwan
guideline, it should be clear by now that the lower levels are little cause
for comfort. Everywhere in Western nations, except in the most remote
forests or deserts, the ambient energy from ELF power systems is several
thousand times above the earth's background field strength, providing
abundant interference with the biocycle timing cues. Moreover, the ac-
cumulated research has clearly shown that small doses often have the
same effects as larger ones. Ross Adey, who has intensively studied the
"window effect,", in which a certain result is produced at some frequen-
cies and power levels but not at others interspersed between the effective-
ones,
believes future research will reveal such windows at much lower
levels, even at fractions of a microwatt. Indeed there has already been