While complaints about TV broadcast towers have received a lot of publicity, the Fox affiliate in Fort Smith, Ark., KPBI-CA, is having trouble getting permission to install a 100-foot STL tower on a half acre site on commercially zoned property adjacent to a residential neighborhood.
An article by Rusty Garrett, Residents Oppose Proposed TV Tower in the Fort Smith Arkansas Times Record Online Edition outlined concerns of area residents, including microwave radiation being possibly linked to tumor formation and human tissue damage, and an adverse impact on other wireless devices such as computer keyboards, home security systems and TV satellite systems. The residents were also concerned about lowered property values and the tower's impact on their efforts to maintain the historical integrity of the community.
In the article, the station's General Manager pointed out that there are other towers in the area; its microwave is no different than those used by cellular phone operations, and the FCC regulates RF exposure from licensed facilities. The article didn't point out that the very devices the residents were concerned about would receive interference from the station's STL transmitter that are likely to expose the residents to higher levels of RF than they would receive outside of the main beam of KPBI-CA's microwave dish and that higher power devices such as hand-held cell phones put much more RF power into human tissues.
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