Ever been concerned about the cellphone radiation?I have.
Ever been concerned if the cellphone companies would know something more about this issue?
I have.
(About the cellphone radiation levels. There is a specific measurement value-system for this, and it’s called SAR, which stands for Specific Absorption Rate. It is "a way of measuring the quantity of radiofrequency (RF) energy that is absorbed by the body”, defined by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA). The regulations for the maximum SAR-levels are as the following: Canada: 1.6 W/kg (watts per kilogram), and for example in Europe it’s 2.0 W/kg.)
There is an interesting discussion about the issue of the positioning the antenna in the cellphone, how to minimize the levels of radiation by repositioning and isolation efforts.
Many of the cellphone companies have nowdays put the antenna on the lower-section of the phones. You have iPhone, RAZR, RAZR2 (in fact almost all of the current Motorola clamshell-lineup), and some of the Nokias now as well have the antenna on the lower-section of the phone. Does it tell us something like we’d be better off to go with the antenna as far away from the brain as possible? But it still leaves the body tissue somewhat close to the antenna. So what if it's away from the brain, but it’s close to your chin? It's your same body tissue anyhow. Some say it's better not to mess with your brains, so preferably the chin-body-tissue then, somehow I would agree on that.
What is the “lower-section” and where is the antenna then?Here on the left-hand-side you’ll see for example from this image taken from the Apple iPhone (although reporting somewhat a high maximum SAR-level: at 0.974 W/kg), see the black area in the lower-section of the phone. It’s in the back, covered with a plastic area.
Here on the right-hand-side an image of the famous Motorola RAZR. On
the right-hand-side you are able to see the phone unfolded, and the bulky antenna-part of the phone is in sight. This is the original RAZR, it has the antenna covered with a plastic area. Otherwise the phone, both the grey and the black, has a metallic shell.Here is an image of the new Motorola RAZR2, current lineup under the Apple iPhone on the left-hand-side under this text. As you can see the antenna-area here is not visually so bulky anymore, however it’s in the same place as before, and the
radiation measured from this particular model is quite significantly low, at 0.36 W/kg. (It’s one of the best in fact, positioned as the 9th in the top ten lowest in terms of SAR-levels measured at your ear.)It’s somewhat disturbing when the SAR-levels are actually measured at your ear-level. How about then when you are on a Bluetooth, and the phone is in your pocket, let’s say near your other valuable organs? Or if the measure is taken from the ear-level, and the actual antenna is at your cheek-level, so there would be a difference on that for sure. (Then there is a whole another discussion about the Bluetooth-radiation-levels, when you are using the wireless handsfree plugin…)
The phones with the lowest maximum SAR-levels are also the longest in terms of size. The lowest SAR measured in the US market i
s the LG Chocolate, LG KG800 (Only 0.135 W/kg !!), and it’s quite long in terms of size when you are using the slider-phone extended. Also RAZRs are long, but also Nokia (here on the left) has the new 6555 that is very long (clamshell with the antenna at the lower-end), however the SAR-level at the ear is quite heavy in any case (0.88-0.89 W/kg), comparing it to the LG Chocolade. I think the reason for this is because of the Nokia 6555 has the 3G that is actually rising the maximum SAR-levels here. However you can switch the higher radiation off using only the 2G network (GSM-setting, not dual mode, UMTS, etc. in the selections), so you’d be better off with lower SAR-levels. Also then you’d be able to save more battery, have longer talk-time, better reception. However if you are using the 3G when using the phone as a “modem” for your laptop or surfing the web on the phone, then it’s another case; you'd want to set it working on the dual mode (3G, UMTS, etc.) and not GSM.All phones need to have the antenna-area under a plastic, or under some other non-metallic cover. In fact you can spot the antenna-part pretty easily on the phones that otherwise have a
metallic shell. The antenna cover can also be made out of ceramic materials, like Vertu Signature has. Also when you open up the battery-cover, you can see that for
example here on this image, it’s apparent that the antenna is on the lower end of the phone (Nokia 6290, measuring 0.47 at ear-level, and it’s also a 3G-phone (on the left, it's opened up) with this low SAR-levels, so it is a fact that when measured at the ear-level, the radiation is significantly lower when the antenna is on the lower section of the phone)
Usually it’s also so that when the antenna is on the lower part of the phone and a candbar-design is concerned, the camera is usually positioned right at the top and also all the plugs for the chargers and USBs are at the top of the phone. Here on this image (left) the Nokia XpressMusic.
Comparing the Nokia XpressMusic with the phone that has the antenna on the upper-section. Here you can clearly see that the camera is positioned a bit lower.(Nokia 3110 on the right)
Usually the whole phone is plastic, so you can’t always tell where the antenna is, so then it’s more likely that you’d have to look at the SAR-levels provided on each model. Now here something that I find interesting, not all of the phones that have the antenna in the lower part, has the lowest SAR-ratings, there are also surprises on the list. It is also so that some of the phones on the list are quad-band-phones (850, 900, 1800, 1900) with 3G / WCDMA etc. capabilities and the maximum levels might come from the usage of one of these networks, since the radiation for example in the 3G-networks is ultimately higher. (Also now there are IP-calls over the WLAN, so that might rise the overall radiation levels measured as well.)
Let’s see the list here: (US market, the lowest SAR levels from the current lineup)
1. LG KG800 0.135
2. Motorola Razr V3x 0.14
3. Nokia 9300 0.21
4. Nokia N90 0.22
5. Samsung Sync SGH-A707 0.236
6. Nokia 7390 0.26
7. Samsung SGH-T809 0.32
8. Bang & Olufsen Serene (Samsung) 0.33
9. Motorola Razr2 V8 0.36
10. Nokia 6263 0.43
There is also surprisingly the Nokia 9300 Communicator at the no. 3, (0.21 W/kg) that has been replaced by the newer version called the Nokia E90. However the newer model has WCDMA and it’s a quad-band phone, so you’ve got now (0.65 W/kg), which is not bad considering it to be also a candybar design. It’s possible that the antenna is somewhere in the lower part also, or it can also be the thickness of the phone so when the antenna is at the other side of the earpiece at the outer edge, so the radiation-level would be so much lower. Or is the antenna somewhere else? At least I remember that the 9500 Communicator had at least two places for the different antennas for WLAN and others.
Then we will see the US market, the highest SAR-levels from the current lineup (Notice here that it’s surprising that the Blackberry Curve is on this top 10 list highest SAR-ratings! I’ve opened it up once or twice and I thought that the antenna must be on the lower part of the phone, but I guess the high SAR-level report is due to the fact that the phone is actually not so long at all. Also here the funny thing is that the number 1 radiator here is a clamshell phone, Motorola V195s that is just barely legal in Canada! (Clearly the antenna is not at the lower end of the phone, instead it's in the middle where the hinge is. And the upper part where the earpiece is, isn't that long.)
1. Motorola V195s 1.6 (Barely legal in Canada!)
2. Motorola Slvr L6 1.58
3. Motorola Slvr L2 1.54
3a. Motorola W385 1.54
4. Motorola Deluxe ic902 1.53
4a. T-Mobile Shadow (HTC) 1.53
4b. Motorola i335 1.53
5. Samsung Sync SGH-C417 1.51
5a. Motorola V365 1.51
5b. RIM BlackBerry Curve 1.51
Radio frequency heating effect and testing
It’s known that the high levels of radio frequency radiation can produce biological damage in terms of the heating-effect. The SAR-level-testing is mainly done by the phone manufacturers themselves for the FCC pass in the US, so I’m also a bit sceptic about that really…
Positioning of the antenna
I don’t know if it was the Motorola RAZR that started the antenna-positioning in the lower-section or was it some other brand. It can be argued also that the positioning of the antenna on the lower-section might be better because of the better reception (thus lowering SAR-level, saving more battery…), since people usually tend to hold the phone with their fingers touching the back of the earpiece, where the antenna usually is. On Nokia manuals, they used to say at least before that 'hold the phone like this' (an image), pointing that “no fingers at this area” because of the reception/battery drain, etc. Also on normal clamshell-phones (the antenna being not in the lowest part) people tend to keep their fingers on top of the antenna area, which is basically the area where the hinge is near by. When you have a candybar phone you’d have to position the antenna quite far away in the lower-end to reduce the SAR-level measured at your ear. So the longer the phone is, the further away the antenna is. When you unfold the RAZR2, it’s so long that I think it’s the clearest reason why it has so low SAR-level reported.
Contradictory handsfree-issue
There has also been a lot of discussion that the handsfree-cables might not reduce the radiation at all, since they might also act as aerials for the radiation, channeling the radiation into your ear. The best is to rely on the SAR-level provided, at least for the time being. I’d value my brains more than some other tissue.
But then again, you can’t really trust on the positioning of the antenna itself either.
I wasn’t actually at all surprised when I spotted the list of the least amount of maximum radiation-level -phones, the most likely suspects were all the ones with the antenna in the lower-section of the phone, even though not all of the phones on the list were clamshells with their antennas on the lower-section of the phone. For example the lowest radiator, LG Chocolade (LG KG800) is a slider, that has the camera placing where the antenna normally is. Now it’s somewhere
hidden in the lower part of the phone. Just like it’s sibling the LG KG810 which is a clamshell phone, you’ll see that the lowest part of the back of this phone has the area for the antenna.When the radiation is measured at your ear, it’s clear that those phones that are in a clamshell-form, have the least amount of maximum radiation (those with the antenna in the lower-part are the best in this test), comparing those with the ones that are in a candybar-form, the antenna behind the ear-piece. Sliders usually have the antenna in the upper section, although this remarkably low SAR-level measured from the LG Chocolade -slider is an exeption in this class. But it also proves the point; the further the antenna, the smaller the SAR-level is measured. And when it's measured at the ear, the lower the rating.
To minimize the radiation-levels absorbed in your body, find a cellphone with a low SAR-rating and preferably the antenna within a longer distance from your brain / body. Some of the cellphones still have these little holes covered with a soft plastic cover that you could hook an external antenna if needed.
Clearly the cellphone companies must have an emergency-strategy for a possible unfavorable development in this regard such as an acceleration of cancer cells reported on humans, linked with a cellphone-use. As some tests have shown that cellphone radio frequency (RF) could accelerate cancer cells in laboratory animals, the studies have not been replicated on humans.
All in all, nowdays my first concern when I choose a new cellphone is to find one based on the antenna location, with as low as possible SAR-rating, preferably a clamshell with the antenna in the lower-section of the phone.
All comments and suggestions welcome:
paulallenthethird@hotmail.com
