F.C.C. Order: R.F. Exposure Safety Standards Rules Now Apply to HAMs

{In my best Alex Jones voice}
This is just the start. Watch for it. They'll be adding more restrictions and hard to follow regulations. By the time the socialist takeover decides to go full brown-shirt, door to door, they'll be able to find a reason to "legally" arrest or take the license and equipment from every civilian radio operator.
 
{In my best Alex Jones voice}
This is just the start. Watch for it. They'll be adding more restrictions and hard to follow regulations. By the time the socialist takeover decides to go full brown-shirt, door to door, they'll be able to find a reason to "legally" arrest or take the license and equipment from every civilian radio operator.

Don't kid yourself, it has happened all over the world in the past.

Getting caught with a receiver and especially with a transmitter in some countries during war time was a death sentence, usually carried out immediately.
 
There's a nice calculator on ARRL's website, with links to help you figure out what to use for numbers. You don't have to send any of the info to the FCC. I'm guessing when you renew you just acknowledge that you've performed this assessment.

Honestly, I think I did some very basic calculations way back when, saw I was good, and never looked again even as I changed my station (or the myriad times I've set up portable). Regulations aside, it's good to know how close is too close.

I used very conservative numbers such as 100w at the antenna (which is likely much less due to coax, SWR, etc), and a 1 min TX, 10 min RX. I tend to hunt POTA stations or pick up special events, etc. so I'm likely much less. 10m is the worst case band for me, and it says I have to be at least 1 foot away, and uncontrolled exposure (neighbors) have to be at least 1.6 feet away. Even at full duty cycle (if I fell asleep on my CW key) it's still only 3.7 feet for uncontrolled exposure.

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I have a flexible 2m antenna that winds through Molle on a plate carrier - it holds off body about 2 inches with Level 3a armor. Dunno if that passes with a 5W HT.

 
I have a flexible 2m antenna that winds through Molle on a plate carrier - it holds off body about 2 inches with Level 3a armor. Dunno if that passes with a 5W HT.

2" is about right there if you are mostly listening and assuming that the CAATail is a 1.0 db gain ...
 
If RF was really hazardous at most commonly used power levels id be dead by now. 🤣

Most of this stuff is based on junk. Or at best, very inexact science. It's not like with nuclear radiation where the effects are well known and mapped out.
 
I suspect it's also much lower than we think. 100W through a tuner and 100' of coax is not 100W at the antenna. Then throw in duty cycles and the fact that you aren't operating 24 hours a day and the effective exposure drops off.
 
Thus came out almost a year ago. There is a lot of information on the FCC site about this. The one thing about this is you don't have to send you calculations and report to the FCC, you just have to have them available if the FCC decides to inspect your station. When was the last time you herd about someone's station being inspected. The FCC isn't even capable of tracking down and citing real radio law brakers. Unless they increase there enforcement manpower this will never happen. Now you may want to check your RF emissions anyway just to make sure you are not baking your brain.
 
I suspect it's also much lower than we think. 100W through a tuner and 100' of coax is not 100W at the antenna. Then throw in duty cycles and the fact that you aren't operating 24 hours a day and the effective exposure drops off.

I can understand having, a safe distance between a house and a 50kw radio transmitter that's continuously transmitting, but a lot of this stuff literally reeks of someone trying to justify their job. There's no easy formulary that says "X watts ERP of exposure at Y distance will kill 50% of adults from (cancer, whatever) in Z years or less". This isn't like nuclear radiation which is full duty cycle and a bunch of bad shit happened in real life (example, louis slotins demon core incident, chernobyl, etc. ) that can be used to qualify the data. Of course it doesn't help matters that frequency changes things as well as the antenna. I mean yes, microwave works because it heats water molecules.... but few people know that there's a goddam waveguide w/gain and a focal point of that heater, on one small area. And basically, if you're flesh isnt in that area, it's not going to get heated.
 
{In my best Alex Jones voice}
This is just the start. Watch for it. They'll be adding more restrictions and hard to follow regulations. By the time the socialist takeover decides to go full brown-shirt, door to door, they'll be able to find a reason to "legally" arrest or take the license and equipment from every civilian radio operator.
Stalin’s goons used to say,

“ Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”
 
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