Questions demanding answers

Some things we want to know about do not seem to have an answer, yet. For some of these, the implication is: ‘then why are we doing this before we know?’

 Before the questions, here are two allegories: The Packet of Cereal and A New Car.

• If, as Colin Blakemore always says, ‘non-ionising radiation does not have any biological effect’, why is it used in medicine, for example to promote healing of bones?

• If the ICNIRP exposure guidelines do not measure the biological effects of non-ionising radiation, why are they used as a guide to safety?

• Why does my nearby TETRA base station wake me up every two hours at night?

• Why do I always get a pain in my head when I go within half a mile of a TETRA base station?

• If losing sleep and getting headaches is not a biological effect due to TETRA, then which is it? Not biological, or a pure coincidence when I go near TETRA base stations?

• Since electrical sensitivity (the sleep problem, headaches and all the rest) is a well-established phenomenon, and is even attributed to ordinary mobile phone masts around the world, why is this an acceptable by-product of the TETRA network?

• If TETRA is safe, why will neither the Government nor the NRPB actually say that it is?

• If TETRA is safe, why is it worth spending £7.6 million of tax payers’ money on research to see if it is safe?

• If policemen are worth monitoring as users of TETRA, in case it isn’t quite as probably safe as assumed, why is no-one doing any research into why people have health problems co-incident in time and place with activation of TETRA base stations?

• If TETRA base stations are safe because the NRPB says they do not pulse, why are TETRA repeaters and handsets (that do pulse) safe enough in the public domain?

• If O2 Airwave describe the 17.64Hz ‘component’ of TETRA as ‘trivial’ and describe their system to planners as pulsed, why does the NRPB insist that it is not pulsed?

• If it would be unethical to erect a TETRA mast for the purposes of finding out if people really do feel ill near them, why is it OK to put them up on hospitals, near schools and next to people’s homes?

• If TETRA masts are so easy to spot, why does O2 Airwave regard their location so secretively?

• If TETRA is so well encrypted and secure, why are the base stations so accesible to criminal damage?

• If TETRA equipment constitutes a hazard to people who get too close, why are so very few of these bases stations compliant with Health & Safety signage?

• Why do we have a Code of Best Practice and the Ten Commitments for telecommunications companies, if no-one has to observe them? Why is there no law instead to keep these masts away from schools?

• If TETRA is described as carrying data, but can only carry data at 3kbps, why is it acceptable to add the cost of additional mobile technology (co-incidentally mmO2 mobiles!) to the Council Tax bill? Is this really best value for money?

 Do you have questions demanding an answer? Contact us and we’ll air the significant ones here.

 Do you have answers (non-ironic answers only!)? Contact us and we’ll include the answers here too.

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