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Is it dangerous to health?

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ahmer saeed

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We are testing 5 Watt S- band transmitter in the lab and are directly expose to it. Is it dangerous to the health?
 

The general safety standard is 1 mw/cm^2 for continuous exposure.

There will be little radiation from the antenna and shielded load. It is the radiation from the antenna (when used) that you will have to calculate. From the vertical and horizontal beam width you can draw on paper a pyramid shape and calculate how far away the power level is down to this level. You can always point the antenna out the window from an adjacent lab bench and only the birds standing on the window ledge will worry.
 

It looks like with this sort of power and frequency range (S-Band = 1.55 - 3.9GHz) you are not far away from mobile phones (some of wich have output power of 600mW to 3W) and so far there is no conclusive heath risk raport on this issue.
However, I would not risk my health by standing for hours in front of transmitting antenna, so try not to expose yourself to much ..
 

5 watts is not that much. Normally you have a 50 ohm load attached to a power amp while testing, so all there really is is a 100 milliwatts or so of leakage. By the time this reaches your eyeballs 2 feet away, it is probably in the microwatt level. Microwave health damage is due to localized heating, which is obviously not going to be a problem.

I wouldn't disconnect the load and put my eyeball right up against the output connector, but aside from that, there is no problem.
 

Avoid 2.45 GHz. Dont look at your antenna from very close at that frequency.



ahmer saeed said:
We are testing 5 Watt S- band transmitter in the lab and are directly expose to it. Is it dangerous to the health?
:!::?::idea:
 

Hi,

the effects of RF/MW radiations are cumulative, they are added day after day. Not only thermal effect is dangerous, there are other effects as well. Don't want to frighten you, but these are not fully described and quantified. Try to be as little exposed as you can.

flyhigh
 

If you did something silly, like hook this transmitter to a high gain antenna (like a horn) and then looked straight down the antenna, you could damage you eyeball.

If you are working on transmitters with the cover off, there will be some radiation into the air. IF you have a good 50 ohm load on the output at all times, the power level radiated into the air will probably not be much, and will RAPIDLY decrease as you move away from the circuit.

So, if you keep a load on the transmitter, and keep your eyeballs at least 1 foot away from the circuit when it is running, it is hard to see how there would be a problem.

If you want to, you can buy a radiation monitor (narda, etc) that is a handheld device that will tell you exactly how much RF energy is floating around. Cost probably around $1000, but worth it if you are a big corporation. In fact, if you are a big corporation, there is probably one hanging around somewhere that you could borrow. Once you make the sweep measurement once, you know where you stand.
 

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