Tetra Masts and Pulsing · 22 December 04
The issue of whether tetra masts produce a pulsed signal or not continues to cause confusion. 02 Airwave and the NRPB claim not but many of the protest groups and biophysicists working in this field claim that they do.
As with many issues in science and human affairs the problem lies in the question. It is insufficiently precise. The company and the NRPB are more or less correct in saying that the power output of a tetra mast is not pulsed. The carrier wave is continuous – but the information it carries comes in discrete bursts.
The continuity of the carrier wave [and the power output] has led those with little appreciation of the sophistication and sensitivity of the human brain [and those with a vested interest in the Tetra roll-out] to claim that there cannot possibly be an affect from masts on the central nervous system. Through ignorance or financial interest they adopt the simplistic view that the brain would only be affected by variations in the power of the signal and nothing more subtle.
However, biophysicists who are concerned about Tetra are pointing out that the discrete bursts of information in the output of a Tetra mast might affect the brain in a way that the plain carrier wave between these burst might not. The information is carried by modulating the carrier wave with approximately audio type frequencies and emitting this in bursts at a rate of 17.6Hz. This low frequency is within the range of human beta brain waves and close to the rate of calcium efflux in brain cells.
The brain is certainly capable of recognising audio type modulations since it deals with audio frequencies anyway. There is evidence that some people can actually directly hear microwaves modulated with audio frequencies. So the brain may perceive the pulses of information even if the power is constant and this stimulation at a rate of 17.6Hz could be very damaging to brain function.
Andrew Warren
Associate of the Royal College of Science
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