High Power Electricity Transmission Effects

[Ershadh]

1.) What are the effects of transmitting electricity at high power?

2.) What will happen to the living beings located near such high power transmitters of electricity?

Even for mobile communication base stations there is a limit posed for transmitting power to avoid harmful effects to living beings. Not to mention the sparrows have been disappearing because of this.

3.) If such high power high frequency current at RF frequency is transmitted, will it not ionize everything which comes in its way?

4.) What will be the situation of nearby locations of the transmitter?

5.) And with the mobile and other telecommunications sharing the limited spectrum how will such high power transmission of electricity not leak into adjacent frequency bands and create spurs?

Kindly help me to clarify these questions.
Thank you.

Is it really necessary for the present or future ?

 

[goldsmith]

Hi Ershadh
As a short reply i can say , transmitting the high voltage is very dangerous and people which are nearby such a system are at risk to be dead .
And another things is high frequency transmitters are much dangerous than LF transmitters .
most of the very high power transmitters ( above 300 KW till 2 Mega watt ) are not nearby cities .
Best Wishes
Goldsmith

 

[chuckey]

the current thought is that heating of human cells will harm them, so the permitted RF radiation levels are based on this. At LF/MF/HF frequencies the level is set at 100V/m. At VHF/UHF/SHF it is 10 mW/cm^2.

2.) Because the human body is such a small part of a 50 HZ wavelength it does not pick any dangerous voltage. I am concerned that under network switching, switching transients occur which contain a whole spectrum of frequencies which I believe could be dangerous to humans.
"Even for mobile communication base stations there is a limit posed for transmitting power to avoid harmful effects to living beings. Not to mention the sparrows have been disappearing because of this. " Every part of this supposition is wrong.

1. The only limit on the power from a communication base station, is the required field strength at the edge of its service area and the possibility of interfering with other users.
2. There is no link between the sparrows and RF power.

3.) RF radiation is non ionizing .
Frank

 

[Ershadh]

the current thought is that heating of human cells will harm them, so the permitted RF radiation levels are based on this. At LF/MF/HF frequencies the level is set at 100V/m. At VHF/UHF/SHF it is 10 mW/cm^2.

2.) Because the human body is such a small part of a 50 HZ wavelength it does not pick any dangerous voltage. I am concerned that under network switching, switching transients occur which contain a whole spectrum of frequencies which I believe could be dangerous to humans.
"Even for mobile communication base stations there is a limit posed for transmitting power to avoid harmful effects to living beings. Not to mention the sparrows have been disappearing because of this. " Every part of this supposition is wrong.

1. The only limit on the power from a communication base station, is the required field strength at the edge of its service area and the possibility of interfering with other users.
2. There is no link between the sparrows and RF power.

3.) RF radiation is non ionizing .
Frank

"Because the human body is such a small part of a 50 HZ wavelength it does not pick any dangerous voltage."
Can electricity be transmitted over large distances at such low frequency? First of all can a 50 Hz wavelength can be transmitted efficiently from a transmitter? For such a signal the wavelength is about 6000 Km. Cant anyone afford an antenna large enough to radiate that much wavelength effectively? Even at fractions of its wavelength I think its impossible for an antenna to resonate at that frequency. Impractical. Please clarify me if I am wrong.

" "Even for mobile communication base stations there is a limit posed for transmitting power to avoid harmful effects to living beings. Not to mention the sparrows have been disappearing because of this. " Every part of this supposition is wrong. There is no link between the sparrows and RF power. "
As my understanding, there is a link between them. The disappearance of sparrows due to the RF radiation hazards is that they often encounter direct access to those base station antennas unlike human beings. RF radiation will not cause problems unless there is no direct access with the antennas (not when being close to those antennas). That is the reason for their rare existence.

" The only limit on the power from a communication base station, is the required field strength at the edge of its service area and the possibility of interfering with other users."
That is one of the reasons for restricting base station transmission power. Some service providers violate the rules posed on transmission powers to increase their coverage on rural areas causing health hazards. Particularly the Sparrow's problem.

"RF radiation is non ionizing."
Please refer Wikipedia...

 

[chuckey]

" As my understanding, there is a link between them. The disappearance of sparrows due to the RF radiation hazards is that they often encounter direct access to those base station antennas unlike human beings. RF radiation will not cause problems unless there is no direct access with the antennas (not when being close to those antennas). That is the reason for their rare existence." what about starlings, blue tits, coal tits, pigeons, owls,. . . . Are they immune to RF? are communication aerials surrounded by dead sparrows?
Frank

 

[Ershadh]

" As my understanding, there is a link between them. The disappearance of sparrows due to the RF radiation hazards is that they often encounter direct access to those base station antennas unlike human beings. RF radiation will not cause problems unless there is no direct access with the antennas (not when being close to those antennas). That is the reason for their rare existence." what about starlings, blue tits, coal tits, pigeons, owls,. . . . Are they immune to RF? are communication aerials surrounded by dead sparrows?
Frank

Not only sparrows, several million birds of 230 different species also die each year due to these radiation. These birds embryos get affected when exposed to base station electromagnetic radiation and lose fertility. And also they often get disoriented by the radiation that they lose their sense of direction. Another species which are the next mostly affected are the bees and white storks. Mobile base stations radiation does have harmful effect on birds particularly, as they are good biological indicators of electromagnetic radiation.

 

[chuckey]

What about high power ( ERP > 250 KW) UHF TV transmitters and radar stations (ERP > 10 MW), both have been in use since the 1960s. Base stations have a Pout of about 200W.
Frank

 

[Ershadh]

What about high power ( ERP > 250 KW) UHF TV transmitters and radar stations (ERP > 10 MW), both have been in use since the 1960s. Base stations have a Pout of about 200W.
Frank

I hope you do know about the difference between the TV, Radar Transmitters and Base Station Transmitter applications.
TV and Radar transmitter purposes are to direct their energies in a particular area for signal transmission and for scanning by beam steering for locating targets respectively. Even if they use high power to transmit they use highly directional antennas like helical antenna for transmission. Their energies scatter a little. And of course their purpose is not to cover the whole area with their waves.
Whereas, Mobile base station's purpose is to not leave any area without their signal coverage. And compare the number of transmitters placed for TV, Radar and Mobile Base Stations. Mobile Base Stations use omni-directional antennas like monopoles to spread out their energy everywhere with sufficient strength for the signal to reach the mobile at the far end of its cell.
Now let me come to my point. Birds can migrate from places near such TV and Radar Transmitters to a safe zone when they get affected by them as those transmitters are firstly less in number and secondly they are located far outside the city limits. Whereas Mobile Base Station Transmitters are located every nook and corner in and outside the city. Even if the birds want to migrate from such radiation prone regions means where will they go?
Kindly correct me if any of my statements are wrong.

 

[chuckey]

" and secondly they are located far outside the city limits". No they are not, remember the twin towers event - one of the towers had a TV mast on it. I heard of a New York TV station that used 8 X 40 KW TV transmitters, because the skyscraper could not take a large aerial array. The London TV stations have their masts within the greater London area. (~5 miles from its centre). Berlin has a TV aerial tower near its centre. The Eiffel tower in Paris has a TV aerial on its top.
Frank

 

[Ershadh]

" and secondly they are located far outside the city limits". No they are not, remember the twin towers event - one of the towers had a TV mast on it. I heard of a New York TV station that used 8 X 40 KW TV transmitters, because the skyscraper could not take a large aerial array. The London TV stations have their masts within the greater London area. (~5 miles from its centre). Berlin has a TV aerial tower near its centre. The Eiffel tower in Paris has a TV aerial on its top.
Frank

Even if they have such masts in the center of the city I hope those aerials masts would have been raised to a height that none of those transmissions hit the ground or levels close to it. Aren't they? They can't, as those beams are highly directional as I've stated earlier. Even in the examples you have mentioned, most of the transmitters were and are located on skyscrapers, right? That itself answers the question. I think there is no big difference, in the statement that I've stated that "Transmitters are located far outside city limits". Either the distance has been increased in the horizontal in the former case or in the vertical in the latter that you have stated. That does the same trick, isn't it?

 

[chuckey]

Err, no, The height of a skyscraper/mast is of the order of 300m . As birds can fly to that height, they should be falling out of the sky around these big transmitters.
Frank

 

[Ershadh]

Err, no, The height of a skyscraper/mast is of the order of 300m . As birds can fly to that height, they should be falling out of the sky around these big transmitters.
Frank

It doesn't matter at how much height birds can fly. What really matters is that at which heights do they nest.
Most of the birds usually nest at heights from 2-9m above the ground.
And the TV transmitters as you stated are placed in masts which are around 300m above the ground. Whereas, the mobile phone base station transmitters are located around 5+m above the ground, which comes in the height range where
the birds use to nest.
Consider the TV transmitter placed some 300m far
above the earth from the bird's nest and the base
station transmitter located around 5+m from the ground, within the range of the bird's nest.
Now, which one do you think will cause problem to these birds ?