[gruez]

>No harm in using a phone and no harm reducing exposure using basic techniques like speaker phone

...except if you're in a room/bus and you're disturbing everyone by being on speaker phone.

>not talking on it in the car

What's the point of this? Are you trying to avoid brain cancer or distracted driving?

>scheduling your router wifi to turn off during the hours you don't plan on using it, etc.

I mean, if you want to go through the effort to set this up, that's your prerogative. I'd probably put more effort into chucking out the 1200W microwave before worrying about the 0.1W coming from router.

[giantg2]

"except if you're in a room/bus and you're disturbing everyone by being on speaker phone."

You're likely disturbing everyone even if you're not on speaker. In general, I'm not going to talk on a phone in a crowded location unless I have to. This is one very small edge case which I don't see affecting my claim that it doesn't hurt to use speaker phone.

"What's the point of this? Are you trying to avoid brain cancer or distracted driving?"

Cars act as weak Faraday cages. Using a phone inside a car increases the power output required to reach the tower. Similar if you are in a low reception area.

"I mean, if you want to go through the effort to set this up, that's your prerogative."

It takes maybe 5 minutes to log into your router and set the schedule. Not much effort at all.

"I'd probably put more effort into chucking out the 1200W microwave before worrying about the 0.1W coming from router."

Why? You realize the microwaves are contained to to inside of the machine by it's shielding, right? The allowable lifetime escape limit is set at 5mW.

Routers can have much higher power output than that. I think the US limit is 1W. This is also something that runs almost continuously as compared to a microwave that runs for maybe a few minutes per day.

[gruez]

>You're likely disturbing everyone even if you're not on speaker.

yeah but in addition to one guy speaking normally half the time, you also hear a distorted voice coming out of the shitty speakerphone the other half of the time.

>Cars act as weak Faraday cages. Using a phone inside a car increases the power output required to reach the tower. Similar if you are in a low reception area.

That's partially canceled out by being able to use hands-free calling in your car, and placing the phone on the other side of the car. I suspect the inverse square law will cause you to get less radiation exposure than you holding the phone using your arms.

>It takes maybe 5 minutes to log into your router and set the schedule. Not much effort at all.

the "effort" also includes the time you have to fiddle with your router to turn it on when you need wifi during the night for whatever reason.

>Why? You realize the microwaves are contained to to inside of the machine by it's shielding, right? The allowable lifetime escape limit is set at 5mW.

yet, when I place my phone inside the microwave it still gets wifi reception (yes, I tested it with 2.4ghz wifi only).

>Routers can have much higher power output than that. I think the US limit is 1W. This is also something that runs almost continuously as compared to a microwave that runs for maybe a few minutes per day.

inverse square law applies here. chances are when you're operating a microwave you'll be standing near by. at the very least you need to be next to it to turn it on. meanwhile the router is probably tucked in some corner of your house.

also, I suspect you can apply the "runs for maybe a few minutes per day" argument to wifi as well. if you're not torrenting on your wifi 24/7, it's probably not pumping 1W 24/7.

[ncmncm]

Microwave oven leakage exposure, while it can be quite large compared to a cell phone's average radiated power, is not modulated. So, the small amount of research we have, which almost all tested wholly unmodulated radiation, suggests that it would have little or no effect.

About the phone, we don't have any good information. That doesn't stop people from insisting they, personally, know, without any.

[giantg2]

"Microwave oven leakage exposure, while it can be quite large compared to a cell phone's average radiated power,"

Is this really true under most circumstances? I think lifetime leakage limit is set at 5mW for microwaves and a cellphone is much higher during tx at around 800mW.

[ncmncm]

"Average"

[giantg2]

Which is?

[giantg2]

"yeah but in addition to one guy speaking normally half the time, you also hear a distorted voice coming out of the shitty speakerphone the other half of the time."

True. I suppose what I'm saying is that with proper etiquette this shouldn't be issue, at least not often.

"the "effort" also includes the time you have to fiddle with your router to turn it on when you need wifi during the night for whatever reason."

This has never been an issue for me for 10 year of doing this.

"That's partially canceled out by being able to use hands-free calling in your car, and placing the phone on the other side of the car. I suspect the inverse square law will cause you to get less radiation exposure than you holding the phone using your arms."

True. However, if we are comparing being in a car to not being in a car, then you would still have more exposure (eg putting on the other side of the room vs other side of the car. Plus, many cars are no bigger than arms length, and of you can put it further than that, toad noise becomes an issue.

"yet, when I place my phone inside the microwave it still gets wifi reception (yes, I tested it with 2.4ghz wifi only)."

Perhaps you should have it tested and get a new one if it's not conforming to safety specs. However, my guess is that since it isn't causing interference with you or your neighbors phone that it's really just a slight difference in the frequency the shielding is designed for.

"inverse square law applies here."

As it does for the microwave. Im frankly tired of everyone going "inverse square law" with nothing substantive. How about you crunch the numbers for someone 3 feet from a microwave at 5mW and someone 15 feet from a 1W router and tell me what you get... just because a concept is true does not mean you are correctly applying it in your argument.

"also, I suspect you can apply the "runs for maybe a few minutes per day" argument to wifi as well. if you're not torrenting on your wifi 24/7, it's probably not pumping 1W 24/7."

Well, routers are generally transmitting multiple times per second just for the beacon/name (yes, probably at 1W since TX rate is gwnerally separate from TX power). How many minutes per day does your household use on wireless internet vs the microwave? I'm guessing it's a close to a factor of 10 difference. How many minutes do you use either during your typical sleep hours? Even if you're TX is 5% of the time during 6 core sleeping hours, that's likely to approach the amount of time you use your microwave.

[michaelmrose]

The act of having the discussion not just the act of pushing buttons or holding the phone is the primary distraction. Anyone using hands free for safety is doing safety wrong. You might as well be driving drunk for the duration of the conversation.