Sandy Bay tower in bad location

EDITOR: A cellular provider has placed one of their towers in the middle of a residential community. At least four different persons during my stay in Overland have claimed that their television reception has deteriorated, the local FM stations now sound “wavey”, their little children are having frequent earaches and now seem to get tired easily (signs of radiation sickness). {{more}}

I too had an unfortunate experience which I blame on the abnormally high radiation from the cellular transmitter which de-sensed a portable FM CD/transmitter from over 100 yards away, which technically should NOT happen. No wonder people in that community are now experiencing those hitherto unknown problems.

Firstly the company who placed that tower in the middle of Overland MUST decrease their power levels IMMEDIATELY !!! You do not need that power to transmit to people right under your antenna, and if you tell me you want to give service to Sandy Bay then the placement of your tower, running that power level that can de-sense a device from 100 yards away is a terrible choice. We need efficient service yes but not at the cost of untold human suffering over time. People are paying for a service that is killing them slowly, and that too is not good business sense. Exposure to radiation over time can kill! The much spoken about (controversial) vehicle operated by the NTRC should make a trip to Overland to ascertain these charges and have an independent technician( who ain’t going to get buy out) go along to observe these tests.

I happen to subscribe to an international radio magazine and about four years ago during an international Telecoms conference, ALL telecoms providers agreed to, among other things, interoperability among providers, including the sharing of towers. In the last two years we have seen each service provider putting up their own tower, several being in the same vicinity, messing up the landscape as well as increasing the radiation area (this is very evident in Rose Hall). The NTRC should know this,(they should NOT be giving permission for more than one tower especially in the middle of a residential area, and I’m blaming planning division too!) if they don’t’ know this, they should not exist. NEMO is benefiting from that arrangement and has their antennas and repeaters on commercially operated towers. There is a tower just outside Overland, why couldn’t they share that tower which is a reasonable distance away from the community. I can say more, but I want to leave you with this one, which manager or technical officer from the local service providers would like to have a cellular tower in their back yard ?



Donald De Riggs.