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  • Author Author: dougw
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Safe and Sound - Invisible Hazards Project Spin-offs - blog 20

dougw

This week I've been sidetracked on a bit of a tangent to my build project.

I was asked to make a presentation on invisible hazardous environmental factors.

All I can say is the grapevine works in mysterious ways.

Anyway I put together a 1 hour multi media presentation along with a show-and-tell demonstration of my instrumentation.

The demo activity was beamed up onto the big screen using live video, so everyone could see the meters in giant scale going crazy when my cell phone was taken out of airplane mode.

I wasn't trying to scare anybody, but there was quite a gasp from the audience when the RF strength went full scale red, similar to this video. (so I threw in some damage control)

It was a little surprising to me to see so much interest in the topic - the room was full and there were lots of questions and lots of comments about how much they were learning.

I will try an attach the Powerpoint presentation to this blog in case anyone wants to have a look at it or use it, although I didn't stick to the script and I mixed in lots of hardware demonstrations.

 

On another front, I had mentioned one of my neighbors was doing a lot of "green" things to his house including connecting the aluminum siding as a shield. I was going to get over there, do an "audit" and take some photos, but our schedules weren't matching up. So I loaned him some instruments and he performed his own audit. Unfortunately he has not yet sent me his readings or pictures, but he did provide a report highlighting things that concerned him. The 2 largest readings he found in his house came from his microwave oven and his cordless phone. (I also found my cordless phone was high 24-7, so I dumped it and went back to wired) He also found some hot spots in his house that he couldn't explain. One surprise was his new vehicle which has some kind of On-Star wireless system. The readings were extremely high in the passenger seat for some reason. This is not a scientific study - just anecdotal data, but it was enough to get him to want to immediately buy his own set of instruments.

 

Unfortunately not a lot of new images this week, so here is an unpublished image. It shows the power consumption of the two custom modules.

 

ModuleVoltage (Volts)Current (A)
MQTT Subscriber (remote Wi-Fi display)5.080.1
MQTT Publisher (gas sensor module)4.970.26

image

 

 

All links to blogs related to this project can be found in the first blog here:

Safe and Sound - Invisible Hazardous Environmental Factors Monitoring System - blog 1

Attachments:
imageInvisibleHazards1.pptx
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  • Nice that others were interested.

    It's quite strange that now after so many years exposed to Cellphones that we are taking interest.

    Unfortunately the number of 'base stations' and the quality of the devices has improved and the power levels radiated have dropped wrt several years ago.

     

    connecting the aluminum siding as a shield.

    I would be wondering if that makes it a farady shield, or simply a really big antenna at at the right frequency image

     

     

    his microwave oven

    It could be leaking, or simply a poor design.

    I does impress me that they could contemplate making a device where the thing that is opened and shut is the one piece that keeps you safe image

     

    I also found my cordless phone was high 24-7

    Q. Did your phone have more than one handset or base station.

    Our two are single handset and base station, and they know when they are sitting in the base station, so I always presumed they wouldn't be radiating until the handset was removed.

     

     

    his new vehicle which has some kind of On-Star wireless system

    I have read that some of them have a wireless connection that allows you to connect your cellphone.

    It effectively gives you coverage all the time ...

     

    We don't have OnStar here, but I did note the portable GPS doesn't work as well as I thought it should so obviously mine has RF floating around.

    Not sure if I want to scare myself and do some checks ....

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    I'm still planning more investigation of aluminum siding - it is a lot of metal so it probably does something but as you say is it good or bad.

    I'm sure my neighbor's microwave oven is normal - I've measured 5 so far and they all leak enough to make the meter get excited. Not enough to cook people, but it can be much higher than a cell phone. I can remember testing a low power 2.4 GHz radio link at work and wondering why we suddenly got massive numbers of bit errors. Eventually we realized it had perfect correlation to use of the microwave ovens in the lunch room on the other side of the building.

    My cordless phone was a single handset - I had assumed the radio would only turn on when the phone was off the cradle, but the rf readings were very high at all times. This was also the case at my neighbors place.

    The readings from the meter have caused me to do some things differently - I got rid of my cordless phone, I keep my cell phone in airplane mode a lot more, I don't stand close to operating microwave ovens, I don't spend more time than necessary under power lines, etc. but I'm not giving up using electricity.

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  • in reply to mcb1

    I'm still planning more investigation of aluminum siding - it is a lot of metal so it probably does something but as you say is it good or bad.

    I'm sure my neighbor's microwave oven is normal - I've measured 5 so far and they all leak enough to make the meter get excited. Not enough to cook people, but it can be much higher than a cell phone. I can remember testing a low power 2.4 GHz radio link at work and wondering why we suddenly got massive numbers of bit errors. Eventually we realized it had perfect correlation to use of the microwave ovens in the lunch room on the other side of the building.

    My cordless phone was a single handset - I had assumed the radio would only turn on when the phone was off the cradle, but the rf readings were very high at all times. This was also the case at my neighbors place.

    The readings from the meter have caused me to do some things differently - I got rid of my cordless phone, I keep my cell phone in airplane mode a lot more, I don't stand close to operating microwave ovens, I don't spend more time than necessary under power lines, etc. but I'm not giving up using electricity.

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