Advise on Microwave safety

[la1impala]

I was wondering how safe 802.11g type wireless is. I think this is at microwave freq. ,

would a 1 watt transmitter like this be safe to be in a room with an antenna?

http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/new-prox-amp.html

what levels watt wise does it become dangerous?

 

[IRstuff]

Do the math. A typical microwave putting out 1000 W onto about 20 in^2 of area, results in 50 W/in^2.

A 1-W transmitter, even if it was all pointed at you is something like 0.01 W/in^2. Additionally, because the power level is so low, you have plenty of time to dissipate the additional heat load. A 10 hr exposure might raise the temperature of 10 kg of water by 0.8ºC, if you completely neglect the invariable heat losses to the environment. Since the typical wireless antenna is omindirectional, the exposure is even less.

This is all high school math level calculation, so it's unfortunate that most people can't seem to bother to do the calculations themselves and would rather be swayed by rumor mongerers and the like.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Higgler]

Cell phones are half watt touching your ear. They have some danger. Walky talkies are typically 4 watts touching your ear.
Originally, the safe amount of power that could hit your body was about 60 watts, enough to raise your body temp 1 degree F. That's 10 milliwatts per square cm. Nowadays it's alot less.

If I had 1 watt on continuously one foot from my head, I'd be concerned enough to move it to a distance of 5 feet or so. It may take another 50 years to see the effects of cell phones on cancer tumor creation to get enough data on having around 1 watt at your ear.

kch

 

[la1impala]

IRstuff dude, throttle back on that coffee.

Higgler, thanks . It will be 10 feet or further, like in a tupperware box on my chimney. Yeah the cell phone scared me, i got one with speaker phone. yes we will see

 

[ksbob]

Where is the antenna and how much gain does it have? Assuming and omni-directional antenna with approx 3 dBi gain, at 10 feet, you should be well below the maximum exposure level.

Also, the current generation of handheld cell phones are limited to approx 200mw max radiated power and only use that much power if you are in an area of poor coverage.