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To: Peter Sitch (Airwave)
Date: 22 March 2004
Peter
I am sure you a very busy man so excuse my haste in seeking answers. I expected the answer to my last question to be so straightforward that you might already have an O2 factsheet ready. I am still very much interested in your answer, so I can understand better.
Meanwhile, I wonder if you can help me here. There is a new TETRA mast TVY031O on the A4130 between Bix and Nettlebed that has a prominent notice warning anyone with a heart pacemaker not to go near. Since the output of this mast is no different from that at Woodside Road, can you help me understand:
- at what distance this notice can safely be read by a person with a pacemaker fitted
- if this is a risk, why are residents near such masts not told or warned about this danger?
- whether this danger also pertains to walkers who frequent the path running alongside the High Salvington mast?
- if, as O2 indicates in its factsheet, the safest place is beneath a mast, before the beam touches ground, why do we get headaches standing there, and why the warning?
- is there any relationship between this RF EM interference and that indicated on our (defective—O2 says) TV equipment?
- Can O2 categorically state that on approaching a police officer for help, such a person with a pacemaker will not be endangered by the use of a handset to call for assistance, since the officer will not know?
- Are all officers and police staff with their own such pacemaker devices being warned not to use the equipment, go near the masts, or in the case of having relatives and family with such devices, take them home?
- Are officers to be advised that especially when called to assist at incidents involving older people, they should not communicate using TETRA handsets (including calling for an ambulance for an unconscious patient or victim) until they have ascertained with some degree of confidence that a heart pacemaker is not present?
I am genuinely interested and seeking to understand what is an increasingly confusing picture that is being presented by O2 Airwave.
regards
Andy Davidson
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