TETRA: Say no to an unsafe technologyfind out more information about TETRA

Worthing

 

10 March 2005. 7.30pm, Pavilion Bowls Club. Public meeting with Dr Gerard Hyland. All welcome.

2 March. Gaisford Residents and Friends invited to present progress to Cabinet Member for the Environment, Worthing Borough Council.

23 February 2005. Tetrawatch presents to Environmental Strategy Select Committee of West Sussex County Council. See presentation with full notes.

February 2005. TETRA mast that should have sought full planning permission on grounds of height is made suddenly legal with a couple of screws! (move your mouse over the picture, right). How absurd.

November 2004. Local survey on health effects published.

October 2004. New Orange mast goes live at Woodside Road. Number 6...

August 2004. Local survey circulated, gathered and analysed.

July 16. Latest meeting with O2 Airwave indicates complete lack of willingness to remove the mast at Woodside Road: see the alternatives page for the update. Lucky residents here have Vodaphone, mmO2 and Hutchinson 3G as well. So guess what? They are about to be given Orange with the facility to upgrade to 3G too.

June 4. Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, and Liberal Democrat Shadow Spokesman for the Environment, visited Gaisford and spoke to residents regarding TETRA at Worthing Football Club.

May 17. Up again. Woodside Road on with a vengeance. Why is the TV interference different this time? Because it’s transmitting at a different frequency this time.

April 19 to May 14. Woodside Road, as other local masts, off or at very lower power. A very pleasant respite, proving that our health problems are as related to these masts as our TV interference.

Did you read about the alternative sites?

We still have TETRA masts! On or off, up or down, either to test with additional masts, or to provide a network for police acceptance testing, we face the same health problems. Meanwhile, all the existing issues remain:

  • what about the effect of the pulsed radiation on residents and police officers and their families?

  • what about the costs and value for money (we will be paying)?

  • what about the interference from equipment and its use in emergency situations?

TETRA is still very much alive. This is the best time to hammer home the issues. If we do not, this system will be in, accepted by Sussex Police, and un-removable.

Known more for its seaweed than its militancy, Worthing woke up to TETRA rather without warning. Working largely at night, O2 Airwave installed three antennae on an existing O2 mast at the Worthing FC football ground in Woodside Road, in January 2004. Having previously petitioned twice about the proliferation of mobile phone masts at this location, they were concerned. When they found out about the nature of TETRA, they were angry. (See TETRA and Science!)

The Worthing FC ground is closely surrounded by houses, some as close as maybe 30 metres from the mast. Residents are now having microwave radiation beamed through their homes from Vodaphone, Orange, O2 and TETRA.

We feel very angry, and the more we find out about the science, the technology and the lack of research, the more we demand that TETRA be removed. O2 Airwave has acted in a way that would appear at times to be clandestine and secretive. They have a target to reach: without being able to commission and test a complete network of masts, they will not be paid by the police authorities. They need to finish on time, and in other Sussex locations (eg Findon) masts have been erected without planning permission in order to meet the commercial imperatives.

Furthermore, when we discover that planning permission is not required, or that the local Council is impotent, or to cap it all that the government reassurances over safety are seriously flawed, we start to stand up and shout. Government sources still state that base stations do not emit pulsed signals, but from measurements made at live base stations this is clearly untrue.

The Worthing FC base station is now operating (it was switched on on February 26). We know, because terrestrial ITV has effectively been knocked out.

A mast has been erected at High Salvington, again without reference to people in the surrounding area.

Repeater masts have been erected at Centenary House, Durrington, and Body Shop, near Littlehampton.

Nearby we have masts at Findon, Bignor, Lancing, Southwick, Clapham, Shoreham and Arundel.

We have had protest meetings with panels of experts from John O’Brien of Protect Sussex from TETRA, to local councillors, to Euro MP Caroline Lucas, and experts in electromagnetic radiation and radio communications. We will post all meetings here.

Incidentally we are not a political group, and focus our protest entirely on the issues surrounding the safety and suitability of TETRA and how this affects us.

Other groups have adopted the TETRA issue into their more political campaigns. The more voice the better, but let’s stick to the issues that will determine whether TETRA is implemented in Sussex and the UK or not.

You will be unsurprised to know that a number of people involved in the wider protest have their phones tapped, their conversations recorded and their emails possibly intercepted. This cause is justified; the official response is not. We are not out to undermine national security or our police. The Home Office and our police need the right system, and quickly. It is not TETRA/Airwave.

For reports from meetings and demos, see Reports
 

TETRA, illegal
Exceeds planning in terms of height, erected without any consultation. Now move your mouse over the picture to make it legal! Same pole, same structure, same dipole loops attached. Suddenly we don’t have an additional structure and height, we have a long antenna (as long as you like) instead!! So that’s alright now, we’re sorted. Eh?
 

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