Someone else in carriage, well, only person, right at end of train. She gets up and asks "are you going to be using microwave technology?". Err, what? "Well like mobile phones or wifi - I am electro sensitive".
So I explain that there are mobile base stations all along the route and they will constantly pumping out a lot more RF than I could, so you will have a problem then!
She gets some sort of meter out and starts on about 15V/m or some such and insists she knows what she is talking about. This is while I am not in a call and not transferring any data, I might add.
I open laptop, she leaves, clearly unhappy. I am, however, a tad speechless. I was not prepared for that. Had I known a nutter was on the train with an RF meter I'd have brought my spectrum analyser with me.
I bet she was only in 1st class to be at the far end of the train, i.e. right next to the driver with his mobile phone, but she can't see him so that probably does not count.
I bet she was only in 1st class to be at the far end of the train, i.e. right next to the driver with his mobile phone, but she can't see him so that probably does not count.
I am surprised they let them out in public!
Update: I have to add some extra strangeness to this post, having never met or heard of such nutters before, turns out that Alex was given a card last night (left under his wiper).
What is the betting they sell expensive RF meters.
P.S. Obviously the irony of "turn off all those things that let you get to web sites and email and contact us, err, via, err, web site or email" is not lost on me, nor the stupidity of a proper(ish) domain and then an email that is not under that domain but tied to an ISP. I also like the idea of turning off phone masts! They clearly lack clue.
Update: The train filled up rather at Didcot Parkway, lots of people with phones, so she stormed back in to 1st class, sat as far from me as possible, and proceeded to cover herself completely in a white cloth. She is clearly even more special than I thought. I hope my camera did not steal her soul.
Update: I have to add some extra strangeness to this post, having never met or heard of such nutters before, turns out that Alex was given a card last night (left under his wiper).
What is the betting they sell expensive RF meters.
P.S. Obviously the irony of "turn off all those things that let you get to web sites and email and contact us, err, via, err, web site or email" is not lost on me, nor the stupidity of a proper(ish) domain and then an email that is not under that domain but tied to an ISP. I also like the idea of turning off phone masts! They clearly lack clue.
Update: The train filled up rather at Didcot Parkway, lots of people with phones, so she stormed back in to 1st class, sat as far from me as possible, and proceeded to cover herself completely in a white cloth. She is clearly even more special than I thought. I hope my camera did not steal her soul.
The EM field from the wires above the train is probably affecting her more than a mobile phone would, or a laptop for that matter.
ReplyDeleteHow do people like that ever manage to leave the house (or the specially built faraday cages they built within their house)?
You could have been evil and mentioned that the ERP from the local TV transmitter is probably close to a megawatt..
Other than the nut-job content of the card, I'm also amused by the email address not being at the domain of the website.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't they use something like teachers@es-uk.info, I wonder...?
I want to know what company prints their emails, delivers them and types up their replies.
DeleteI want to know what company is printing out their emails, delivering them and typing up their replies. Sounds like a money-spinner right there.
DeleteMany (most?) sheeple have an aversion to rational thought and prefer to follow the tabloids. About ten years ago my older kids' high school realised they had a mobile base on the roof and called a parents meeting with the objective of buying out of the contract (at a cost to the school of over £15k). I explained that radio waves essentially travel in straight lines and I'd rather it was 10m above my kids heads pointing away than relocated to the flats next door and beaming through the school. I asked the other speakers for their qualifications to speak on the subject (none) and gave mine - degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College specialising in waves, accredited to instruct amateur radio licencing courses to the highest exam level, holder of just about every UK radio licence you can get without wearing a uniform, etc. etc. They chose to believe the Daily Wail view over mine.
ReplyDeleteWe sent the youngest to a different high school.
They also missed the obvious when it comes to mobile masts, especially with lots of kids carrying mobiles nowadays; the power control loop.
DeleteIn layman-friendly terms, the entire mobile network is designed to use the minimum possible RF power at all times - if the mast is a long way from the phones it's serving, the phones crank their RF field level up to compensate. If the mast is close, the phones turn down their RF power output. Therefore, if you're worried about the exposure of your kids to RF fields, what you want is at a sectored mast on the school with a low power sector pointing at the school grounds. The result of this is that the RF field from both masts and phones in the school grounds is very, very low; if you remove the mast, the phones start emitting more to communicate with a more distance mast.
And, of course, we now see the well-predicted consequence of this irrationality with the huge measles outbreak. Everyone who peddled (and the idiots who continue to peddle) Dr Wakefield's nonsense need to be locked up.
DeleteOr have "correlation does not imply causality" tatooed on them somewhere.
I have a customer who doesn't have wifi in their house and has bought a "special" cordless phone that "doesn't transmit all the time like the normal ones do".
ReplyDeleteThey also devine(?) for water and investigate crop circles..
The card is true in one respect -- anxiety *can* be caused by electromagnetic radiation! The existence of the card alone is proof of that. Of course, lots of entirely nonexistent things can cause anxiety...
ReplyDeleteThe white cloth served two purposes: to be 'electromagnetically resistant' since it is clearly made of metal (er, right), and to make you feel ashamed of exposing her to such terrible stuff and forcing her to such extremities, you fiend!!!
Oh dear - they're a registered charity:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/ShowCharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1103018&SubsidiaryNumber=0
How do people get away with pushing Daily Mail soundbited nonsense?
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ReplyDeleteReminds me of this...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/orthodox-jew-flies-plane-huge-plastic-bag-photo_n_3064473.html
Does anyone know where I can get one of these cloths? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI hope they have a CE mark.
Are they rated to Class II?
Try http://www.energeticnutrition.com/hi/neutralizer.html
DeleteNo radiation absorbent clothing but the whole house plug neutraliser.... It looks like a parody site but I think they are really selling those (obviously they should put an add at Didcot station...)
>..... and proceeded to cover herself completely in a white cloth
ReplyDeletePresumably very expensive RF shielding cloth.
Pity she's left some rather large gaps behind her and where she's sitting on the seat.....
Doesn't first class have wifi? If you're trying to avoid any form of radio waves i would have thought that would be one of the worst locations on the train she could have picked?
ReplyDeleteThis was First Great Western, so 1st class did not even have power sockets and certainly no wifi.
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