This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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we go, welcome to Amtopi Calling less talk, Neil's
your guy Amtopi, here we go Good evening, everyone.
It's time for HamTalk Live episode number 259.
The new FCC RF exposure policy recorded live
on Thursday, May 13th, 2021. I'm your host, Neil
Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this episode
of HamTalk Live. Tonight, we're joined by Greg
Lapin, N9GL, and Dan Brown, W1DAN. And we'll
take your calls live a little later in the show.
Last week, Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, Julio Ripple,
WD4R, Rob Macedo, KD1CY, and Lloyd Colston, KC5FM
were here. to talk about this year's hurricane
net so if you missed that show you can listen
anytime at HamTalkLive .com or on your favorite
podcast app or on YouTube and don't forget you
can catch the rebroadcast of HamTalk Live on
WTWW that's 5085 AM Saturday afternoons at about
330 PM Eastern Time. So we've got an interesting
show tonight if the Chat before the show is any
indication. This is going to be a very interesting
show tonight. So if you have questions, get those
ready. And I'm going to give you the phone number
so you can write it down and have it ready to
call in or type it in and have it ready to go.
If you're listening to us live on Thursday night,
you can call us after the interview and I'll
tell you when it's time to call. But here's the
number. It's 859. 9 8 2 73 73 again the number
8 5 9 9 8 2 73 73 We'll also take questions from
Twitter a Twitter handle is at ham talk live
and if you're on Spreaker live and you have an
account you can Type in the comments there and
we'll see those as the night goes on. So I'll
be back with Greg and Dan right after this word
from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. Thanks for choosing Tower Electronics.
How may we help you today? We have PL259s. We
have in connectors. We have SMA adapters. We
have BNC adapters. What can I show you today?
Where's the tower? Well, we don't actually have
a tower with us. But we have all kinds of things
you can use with a tower. We have power poles,
antennas, soldering irons and meters. Where's
the tower? Ma 'am, that's the name of our company.
We can't haul towers to all the ham fest across
the country that we visit, but we have almost
every connector and adapter you would need to
connect your antenna that's on your tower. I
don't think there's a tower back there. I really
don't. Coming to you live from the glass -enclosed
Faraday box, here's Neil Rapp with more HamTalk
Live. Welcome back to HamTalk Live! Thanks to
Scott and Jill at Tower Electronics for sponsoring
the show tonight. They help bring HamTalk Live
your way each and every week. Coming up on their
HamFest schedule, they do have a couple of them
out there. Newbury, Michigan in June 12th and
Monroe, Michigan June 20th. But you can visit
them anytime at PL -259. Tonight, Greg Lappin,
N9GL and Dan Brown W1DAN joins us on the Orlando
Amateur Radio Club and Hamcation Zoom Line. Dr.
Greg Lapin, N9GL, is the chair of the ARRL RF
Safety Committee and a member of the FCC Technological
Advisory Council. And Dan Brown, W1DAN, is the
Eastern Massachusetts Technical Coordinator,
president of the Wellesley Amateur Radio Society,
and he's a television broadcast engineer in Boston,
Massachusetts, or I should say... Boston, Massachusetts,
I guess. So Greg and Dan, welcome to the show.
It's great to have you here. Thank you, Neil.
Hey, good evening. How are you, Neil? Doing well,
doing well. We're wrapping up the end of the
school year here and getting ready for a move.
And so we're actually going to be off the show
for the next three weeks during the move. But
the timing here is pretty appropriate because
I'm taking down all the antennas and the tower
and everything and trying to come up with what
I'm going to do at the new place. And there are
RF exposure issues there, of course. uh... living
in a neighborhood and uh... the fcc is issued
a report in order uh... to extensively revise
the RF exposure standards and that took effect
on may third so uh... greg tell us a little bit
about how what does this mean to the everyday
ham and and how is this impacting the ham radio
community well i think it's a little scary to
say that extensively revise the RF exposure standards,
because the revisions are not that extensive.
They don't affect us all that greatly, us being
hams or many of the other people who transmit
in the United States as well. So the first thing
you should know is no exposure thresholds were
changed at all. So if you tested or examined
your station in some way, performed an assessment
before, That applies today, even after the rule
change. The FCC exposure regulations were changed
mainly to harmonize similar rules across all
of the services that they regulate, which includes
amateur radio. The major change for HAMS is that
previously we had a table of categorical exclusions
that set minimum conditions under which we did
not have to automatically perform exposure assessments.
And that's because the likelihood of overexposure
was considered to be very low in those cases.
And that goes all the way back to 1998. That's
when that went into effect. And when they did
that, at that time, they made special conditions
for many different services. And it got very
complicated, determining what to do for what
service. So what they wanted to do now is make
the same set of rules across all of the services
And so that means a little extra work for us,
but no major changes. All right. Well, that's
good to know because, um, you know, when you,
when you read this stuff, it's like, Oh, they've
made a change. And I think you said, uh, before
the show that it was the first change that's
been made since like, what, 1998? That's when
I first went into effect for hands. Yeah. So.
It's good to know that even though some of the
wording has changed and the policy has changed,
not really a whole lot has changed in the ham
community. What do hams need to do to evaluate
their current station or a future station? What
needs to be done if you're doing that? The basis
is that a full evaluation can be done with measurements,
but measurements are difficult because they have
to be calibrated measurements. And not many people
have calibrated receivers that will tell you
exactly what the power densities in air are at
different locations. So it's much easier to take
a modeling program such as Easyneck and to model
your station. and figure out just what the powers
are at different distances away, and then you
figure out how far people are. That's another
misconception that a lot of people have. Your
transmitter has nothing to do with exposure.
It's your antenna that does all the exposure.
So as long as you change out your transmitter
with another one of the same power, there's no
difference in exposure. However, the antenna
is important and how far people are from the
antenna is important kind of like the old saying
if tree falls in the forest doesn't make a sound
so if you're transmitting power and nobody's
near your antenna do you expose anyone the answer
is no very good well dan you're a broadcast engineer
and so you're Around some high RF environments
and we may talk about that a little bit more
later on but I know you mentioned Handhelds and
wanted to bring up handheld so Let's talk about
that because that's that's right up in your face
okay, so you know my history is I've done a few
of these talks already on this on the subject
and a lot of people who've listened to these
talks are concerned because the rule was published
in April and became active May 3rd and a lot
of people like Greg was saying thought that there
was a major change happening and it isn't really
a major change it was the exclusion tables gone
and everybody either did their evaluation years
ago starting in 1998 or will have to do it if
they change their station going forward. Some
of the questions that are coming up that Greg
could help us about is the handy talkie, a two
meter handy talkie or a 440 handy talkie. People
are concerned about the heating from the antenna
and whether they need to do either measurements
or actually modeling, which I don't think any
ham really needs to do on a two meter antenna.
And this comes up to a rule, a division that
the FCC came across, which is 20 centimeters
from a body. So Greg, I'd like you to elaborate
on what does the average ham do with an HT these
days? Well, the first thing which would make
everyone feel better is that they have essentially
issued a grandfather clause. So any radio that's
out there now, and they went even further and
said any radio that was designed, not even made,
but designed under the old set of rules is grandfathered
in. So that radio in perpetuity is good to go.
You don't have to do anything with it. For newer
radios, the manufacturers are going to have to
run tests just like the cell phone manufacturers
do. The one thing about the 20 centimeters that
makes it a little difficult for us is that you
can't model it with MPEs, which stands for maximum
permissible exposures, but that's energy in the
air. So we model energy in the air and assume
how much of it got into your body and creates
heat which is something called SAR specific absorption
rate and that is the actually that's the gold
standard of exposure it's very hard to measure
and manufacturers do it I don't think any hams
will ever be able to do it so by that grandfathering
we're all okay with all of our existing radios
and any radios that we buy that were built under
the old rules. In the future the manufacturers
are going to have to perform that analysis and
then when we get it there'll be a little label
on it saying that it was tested and we're good
to go once again. Will they include some type
of a report in a new radio? I don't know if they
will. I know that that happened on some of the
cell phones just because citizens groups insisted.
But as far as the FCC is concerned, if they're
under the limit, they're under the limit. It
doesn't matter what the levels they measure are
just so long as they're under the limit. Okay.
Thank you, Greg. So, Greg, do you think that
this might have an effect on, say, radios that
You buy on Amazon for 30 bucks? Well, I have
one of those too. I think we all have one or
two of those. And you know, by FCC law, they
can't be imported unless they've been tested
to meet all the FCC rules. Beyond that, I can't
speak. There are always things that come into
this country incorrectly, but I don't know if
this is going to be one of those. Interesting
to think about. Well, why did the change happen
with the exempting amateurs to require certain
evaluations? Why did they feel like this is the
time to make that change? Do you think? Oh, it's
not like they felt this was the time. This has
been in the works since, uh, I'm not sure when
it started, but, uh, back in the 2007, 2008 timeframe,
uh, they started making changes. The FCC was
pushed by Congress to make changes. because no
changes had been made to their rules for exposure
in a long time. And some of the Congress people
were getting pressure from their constituents
to say that this can't be right. They have to
keep updating it to make it safe. And that isn't
true. If you look at the scientific standards,
which the ones I work with go back to 1966, The
levels that we have to meet have not changed
an awful lot over all that time. So the science
has been pretty consistent. Now, Dan, you've,
like I said, work in some of those high energy
fields occasionally. And you've had a chance
to read this and you've been given a lot of talks
on this kind of thing. I'm interested a little
bit to hear what the broadcast industry is thinking
of all of this. Well, the broadcasters aren't
really that cognizant about this latest change
because it's primarily a change for the radio
amateur. However, the exposure standards, the
OAT 65, A, B, and C, are still true and broadcasters
have to heed to that. So for instance, we put
up new transmitters about a year ago and before
we could install new transmitters we actually
had to do the math to determine that our antenna
at 1200 feet up in the air at a certain frequency
putting out megawatt ERP anybody on the ground
near the tower was not going to get overexposed.
And we did prove that via math, and that was
part of the application to get the construction
permit for the station. So what's interesting
is that these rules, as Greg was saying, it homogenizes
our ability to measure or calculate our exposure.
across all various services of people who use
radios companies use radio land mobile to a FM
broadcast and broadcast television point -to
-point stuff like that so you know broadcasters
this is not really a change for them this is
a change for radio amateurs okay very good Well,
hopefully that has piqued our listeners interest
here and maybe they have some questions to throw
in here So we're gonna take a break and when
we come back, we'll open up the phone lines at
eight five nine nine eight two seventy three
seventy three and we'll take a look at the tweets
and and the Chat on Spreaker and all that when
we come back with Greg and Dan right after this
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than talk, tweet us at HamTalk Live. Now, here's
Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live. Oh, yeah. You're
talking ham radio, baby. You're listening to
HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Welcome back to
HamTalk Live. HamTalk Live's on the air every
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well as ICOM America Inc. You will find them
there as well. Alright well we've got more to
get into and again the phone lines are now open
so give us a call at 859 -982 -7373 and we'll
take your questions and we've got some more stuff
to talk about here but first we need to go to
N9GSU with this week's Now it's time for the
HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week, the
part of the show where Rick tells us a ham radio
joke. The HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the
Week is brought to you by QRM Labs. Now, here's
Rick Garrett in 9GSU with today's HamTalk Live
Joke of the Week. I was at the ham fest the other
day and I saw a radio for sale for only a dollar,
but the volume was stuck on full blast. I thought
to myself, I can't turn that down. This has been
the Ham Talk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week
with Rick Garrett in 9GSU. Tune in again next
week for another joke from Rick. Alright guys,
he can't turn that down, so we're... We're gonna
have to talk about turning down the power. All
right, well, it's time for your call. So if you
have a question for Greg in 9GL or Dan, W -1
-D -A -N, give us a call right now, 859 -982
-7373 or tweet at HamTalk Live. And if you're
listening to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition,
this is a recording, so. We will not be available
to take your call All right. Well, we were talking
during the the break here about You know hams
being, you know categorically excluded and I
know Greg had some more to say about you know
being categorically excluded and But then the
FCC also says, you know We're all responsible
for compliance on this and figuring this out.
So, uh, Greg, why don't you talk a little bit
more about that? Well, um, I, I use the phrase
catch 22. I hope you all are familiar with the
book or the movie. Um, but the FCC created their
own catch 22, uh, where they say that all licenses
are responsible for the compliance of their sites
and equipment. with FCC limits on RF exposure.
But the only way to know that for sure that you're
compliant is to perform an assessment. And then
they tell you that you may be covered by a categorical
exclusion where you don't have to perform the
assessment. So there's the Catch -22. Luckily,
a full assessment might be a little complicated
depending on your setup and type of antenna.
But these simple equations that they give you
today for just to determine it. It's a very conservative
equation, and it just helps you determine if
you have any need for concern. And running that,
a lot of people can do it in their head. It's
very simple. And then you know if you're talking
about a condition where you might be overexposing
someone or you definitely are not. And and Dan
I know you wanted to talk a little bit about
the calculations about the math and getting all
of that Figured out and and I know you the two
of you were talking earlier about you know You
come up with some ridiculous number and and it's
like okay. Should I be worried about that? So
why don't you talk a little bit about the math?
Sure, well Like Greg said there's a simple equation
that you can run if you want to sharpen your
pencil and do that. But I, number one, kind of
look at one of these charts. There's a chart
in OAT 65. It's figure one that kind of gives
you the basic idea of these limits per frequency
range. And I take it a little bit easier where
there are a number of free online calculators
that you can go to these websites and you can
put in your numbers, your your transmitter power,
the mode, your antenna, the coax loss, the distance
from anybody, and figure out whether you're compliant.
There are three that I kind of like. Paul VP9KF
has a site called HintLink .com, and he has a
power density calculator. You can Google that.
And that shows compliance at a given distance.
The Lake Washington Ham Club with the assistance
of Wayne N6NB's code shows distance to compliance.
And then I like this Excel spreadsheet from Ham
Radio School, hamradioschool .com slash RF exposure
calculator. You can download this spreadsheet
and put all the numbers in. and see what your
compliance is and see all the other variables
as you change various numbers. So there are other
calculators on the web that you can use, or like
I said, you could do the paper formula calculation,
but just do these and you get an idea of what
bands, what power levels, what modes tend to
be a little bit more troublesome than others.
If you do all the calculations for all the frequencies,
modes, and powers that you run, print it out
and stick it in the drawer, then you've done
your evaluation. And if your neighbor decides
to complain and saying, ah, you're too much RF
hot, and the FCC comes knocking on your door,
you have this paperwork that you can show that
you did due diligence. The FCC also allows people
to use any other valid method to determine compliance.
So they're not really limiting how you do it.
They really want us to be aware of what our RF
environment is. 859 -982 -7373 is the phone number.
If you have a question to add to the conversation,
give us a call or send us a tweet and we'll talk
about that. Greg before the show when you or
Dan were talking you mentioned some things about
80 meters and Dan and I were kind of joking around
about other things on 80 meters, but but talk
a little bit about how different bands are Affected
by the human body Well, it's not so much that
the band is affected by the body but how much
of the energy actually gets absorbed in at different
frequencies. And if you just think of resonances,
your antenna length is somewhat related to the
wavelength. It's often a quarter wave or half
wave, vertical or horizontal. And your body's
the same thing. Slightly different measurements
because you don't have air inside your body,
at least most of your body. But the point is
that As your body gets closer in size to the
wavelength, you absorb more of that energy. And
that's when it becomes more dangerous for you.
So that's pretty much in the VHF region. An adult's
head is roughly up around the lower UHF. And
a normal person's body is pretty resonant all
the way between 30 and 300 megahertz if you're
looking at 80 meters the wave or 160 meters even
the wavelength is so long that your body is just
sitting in a little piece of that and you're
not absorbing very much of it and I think that's
that's the big clue that you get from the old
exclusion table too you were excluded transmitting
500 watts at 80 meters, but only, I don't have
the table in front of me, but I think it was
75 watts at 15 meters. So clearly your body was
beginning to absorb more and more as the frequency
went up. The other thing that we talked about
earlier is if you want your antenna to work properly,
this has nothing to do with exposure, you have
to get it Good portion of a wavelength above
the ground the further away you are from the
ground the further you are Further away you are
from people walking on the ground. So it's just
naturally less exposure that way Okay, so you're
gonna so this is bringing up a Touchy thing for
me right now because I'm moving into an HOA the
for the first time So how do you convince people?
That having a 60 -foot tower is better than a
30 -foot tower. I Don't know how you convince
the nation away of anything You just build it
it just seems backwards that it's like, you know
If you if you put it up higher than there's got
to be less RF exposure, right? That's absolutely
true Of course, we're going to make sure that
even at 30 feet up, you're not overexposing anyone.
But if you get 60 feet up, you're exposing them
even less. So keep in mind that, you know, if
you have a 60 -foot tower with a tri -band beam
on top, right? That beam is aimed towards a certain
direction, so it's going to have maximum gain
in that forward lobe, the main lobe of the antenna.
Now if if Toto the dog and and the mother walking
down the street In front of your house that main
lobe is not aimed towards down towards the dog
So you can use easy neck to kind of determine
what that power level off lobe is and You will
see that you're even more safe Another thing
I want to bring up is duty factor of our transmitters
So if you're on a single sideband without a speech
processor, you're doing about 20 % duty cycle.
And if you're doing contesting with a speech
processor, you're at maybe 50 % duty cycle. FM
is at 100%. FSK, RIDI, AFSK, they're at 100%.
And the other thing to keep in mind is your time
on and time off, the transmit time, gets averaged
in as well. So that can help you. Us hams and
our family members are under the control group.
We're considered professionals as far as knowing
that we have radios and what they do. So the
averaging time is over six minutes. But you know,
Toto the dog and a mother walking down the street,
Uh, that averaging time is 30 minutes with a,
uh, a weaker, uh, field strength. So it just,
it matters where this, where this is going, where
the energy is going. And, and yeah, I guess we
just need to, uh, to make sure people realize
that, you know, the further. It is up in the
air and the more directional it is that the less
Harm it could be go ahead Greg. I'm sorry. I
cut you off. I Just jumped in to add to what
Dan said that So if you do the the simple calculation
the very simplest it assumes that Your maximum
game gain of your antenna is in all directions
Because it's simple not because it's true So,
if you have a 10 dB gain of Yagi and you're not
getting 10 dBs of gain toward the ground, but
the simple equation assumes you are because it
doesn't make distinction. If you still pass with
that, if you're still under the thresholds with
that, you're good to go and most people are.
If you're not, then you go and do the real exposure
analysis and put into effect some of the things
that Dan said, like your 10 dB gain is toward
the horizon, 60 feet up in the air, and no people
walking on the ground are gonna get anything
like that. And you run an easy neck profile of
it, and you find out those people are way, way
under, I shouldn't say underexposed, we don't.
think that way, but they get much less exposure
than is anywhere close to what would be considered
the threshold. Greg, what about a ground mounted
vertical? So the ground mounted vertical is the
one that has issues because it's mounted on the
ground and people can walk right up to it unlike
your 80 meter dipole which is probably 20 meters
in the air at least. where no one can get that
close to it, they can get close to the vertical.
I actually wrote a QST article once about just
that topic a long, long time ago for field day,
because we were using verticals in field day
and we were in a field and people were walking
all over the place. So the article was about
that. Do your calculations for your field day
site and then put ropes around your antennas
to make sure no one walks that close. Okay, so
that would also be the same for like summits
on the air and parks on the air figure out where
Your your RF field strength is too strong and
then just keep people away from that point. Yes
Now again, you can do it's the simple way and
then just get distance from the entire antenna
But in reality your vertical antenna is still
Transmitting most of the energy above people's
heads So if you do if you complicate your Your
analysis you'll find that they can still get
pretty close to the antenna and not be overexposed
And Greg I know you had some you know some other
studies that can kind of put people's minds at
ease with the with the handhelds in some adjacent
bands. So why don't you mention that too? And
then we've got a question on Twitter here. Okay.
We mentioned that anything closer than 20 centimeters
has to have an SAR analysis, which is a very
difficult analysis to perform. But manufacturers
do that. They have been doing it for cell phones
for many years now. They haven't been doing it
for ham radios because they haven't been required
to. Now they will be. Any radios that you have
today are grandfathered in, so you don't have
to worry about that. But eventually, the manufacturers
will be doing that. And the radio you buy, the
HD that you buy, will have a little sticker on
it that says it was tested. And then you're,
once again, compliant. Our safety committee,
we did a real quick little look at commercial
HTs that sit in bands adjacent to ham HTs. So
the police and firefighters use HTs sometimes
in the 150, 160 megahertz region, pretty close
to two meters. And the military uses HTs down
138 to 144 on the other side of two meters. All
of those are tested. And we went and looked at
the FCC database and found that the testing for
all of those is below, and sometimes quite a
bit below, the limits, the overexposure, the
FCC limits. So if we can just make the leap from
over that short few megahertz and think that
they're not gonna build those ham HTs any different
than they're building the commercial ones, then
we can be assured that our HTs are going to meet
all of the FCC SAR limits. All right, very good.
Well, let's take a question here from Twitter.
Chris, w4nrg, wants to know, what are the consequences
of exposing someone or yourself? Is it a third
arm or a burn or a lawsuit? You'd probably get
arrested. It's a very good question. The standards
have been written with quite a bit of safety
in them. So what they do when they write a standard
is they go out and look at all the science that
was ever done with exposure and they look for
anything that has an effect, not just any effect
but a bad effect. And then they divide by 10,
the level at which that effect occurred. They
divide the RF power by 10. And that's for hams.
That's the occupational level. And then they
divide by another five for the person walking
down the street, the general public. So the quick
answer is if you go over that exposure threshold,
for a short time, you'll see no effects. And
that's why there's averaging time. You average,
you can, let's say, expose over the threshold
for a short time, but if it's averaged over a
six minute period for us, or a 30 minute period
for the general population, and the average is
below that threshold, that is perfectly safe.
I knew there were conservative values. I didn't
know it was that conservative. Yeah, the standard
works with a lot of science, the thousands and
thousands of studies. And they have to allow
for a lot of variation. A lot of the science
doesn't always have the best measurements of
signal levels. So just to be on the safe side,
they take what everyone says and divide it way
down. Okay, good to know so yeah, I mean In my
chemistry background, you know and looking at
radiation effects there's there's this you know
pretty big threshold of You're not gonna see
a thing and then you know then you might start
you know kind of getting into the immune system
a little bit, but but You know, that's probably
about all we're talking about, especially here.
Neil, let me stop you because you're talking
chemistry and I'm pretty sure you're talking
about ionizing radiation. Right. So there is
one of the basic differences in radiation. We
call it radiation because it radiates, not because
it's dangerous. Right. It goes from here to there.
nuclear bombs, nuclear power plants, they make
ionizing radiation. And what that means is it
will take chemical substances in your body and
turn them into ions, breaks them apart. That's
not good for you. And even then, you can get
exposed to a certain amount of that and survive.
A lot of studies back in the middle of the 1900s,
nuclear weapons were being developed about just
what a person could tolerate. But eventually
it did bad things to you. Non -ionizing radiation
doesn't do any of that. It does not break apart
any of the chemical substances in your body.
So there's no effects on anything except, like
a microwave oven, it generates heat. So we make
sure it doesn't generate anywhere near the heat
that a microwave oven does, but it is generating
heat in your body. Your body is very good at
removing heat. It has all kinds of little things
that it will do. It'll make you start breathing
faster to expel heat. Sweating, obviously. And
if the heat is localized, say in your brain,
your body will actually increase the blood flow
to the hot part to pull the heat away. So your
body is capable of removing a certain amount
of heat, but not too much So that's where the
standards are based. They don't want your body
Generated or they don't want the RF generating
more heat in your body than your body can remove.
I Have a fun analogy When I was a novice I Had
a Heath kit Apache transmitter on CW And one
day I accidentally transmitted into the end of
a piece of coax. And I had touched that piece
of coax with my finger. And it burned my finger.
It was like a match. You took a match and put
your finger over it. And it burned my finger.
And that was it. It took longer for that to heal,
but it did heal. And I think that was a little
bit higher than our MPEs we're dealing with today.
Yeah, probably a lot higher. I have a similar
story where I, in the old tube radios, I reached
in and touched the capacitor and got the same
kind of burn that you got. Yeah, right. So yeah,
anyway. Mitigation, a couple of things we can
do if we are overexposing people is we can restrict
access to our antennas. We can move the antennas
up higher or farther away from people. We can
talk for shorter periods of time or just go off
the air for a while. We can lower our transmit
power and then we can also pause operating when
Toto's walking by with Mother on the street.
There you go. So some good mitigation strategies
there. And yeah, and that was my point too, Greg.
That's the chemical stuff. There's a fairly good
threshold in that, and this is nowhere near.
that range. So yeah, that's absolutely agree
there. All right, well, we're about to the end
here, guys. So let me shoot it back to both of
you for any final comments here before we wrap
things up tonight. Great, go ahead. I'll go first.
I have seen, just looking at some of the different
things online, that people get really worked
up about some of this stuff. And I've seen some
really horrible misconceptions. You don't need
to get that upset about these things. First of
all, the FCC is not trying to get rid of us.
They actually like us. We are a service of theirs.
They look kindly upon us and they really want
to make it possible for us to operate. And so
they tailored all these rules so they aren't
impossible and it's not gonna cost us an arm
and a leg to do this testing. We are a valued
service and they're just trying to make sure
that we follow some very simple rules to make
sure that people don't get overexposed. You don't
have to buy special test equipment. You don't
have to spend a lot of money. You probably don't
even have to spend a lot of time for most stations.
So don't get too excited. Don't get too upset.
Keep operating. Run some simple calculations.
After you've done it, you'll say, what was I
so worried about? And then you'll be done for
the next however many years till they make the
next rule of change. Yeah, I agree with that.
It's much ado about almost nothing and a lot
of people are overly worried and I recommend
use the online calculators. Get a feeling of
what your station is doing. Print out the results
and stick it in the drawer and you're good to
go. If you want to get more into this you can
look at The FCC OAT 65B document, which is how
to determine compliance for ham radio people
primarily. Ed Hare wrote the book RF Exposure
and You in 1998. About 90 % of that is still
perfectly accurate and usable. It's a great book.
Really, really soup to nuts on what you need
to know. And it's also available for free in
a PDF form from the ARRL website. It is, yeah.
And the ARRL has a RF exposure page, and all
this stuff is linked to that. And if you're still
bamboozled about all of this, the ARRL Technical
Information Service can help you. And you can
email them at tas .arl .org. But it's really
simple, very slight change on May 3rd. Most people
are already compliant. Did your exclusion or
figure your compliance up before then you're
good to go and You know have fun Well some great
stuff from both of you I appreciate you being
here and Hopefully putting some people's minds
at ease about all of this because it has been
the hot topic lately and You know, people are
concerned about, you know, oh my gosh, do I need
to do this or do that? And I think you've given
folks some great ideas here of just, you know,
what they do need to do and what they really
don't need to do. And I think that's going to
put some people's minds at ease. So thank you
both for that. You're quite welcome. You're very
welcome, Neil. Thank you. All right. Well, we're
going to finish things up here tonight. So I
want to thank again, Dr. Greg Lapin in 9GL and
Dan Brown, W1DN, DAN, and everybody out there
in cyberspace for listening and typing in. And
again, we're going to take a little bit of a
pause here to get everything moved. So we'll
be back June 10th. For another episode of ham
talk live. We're taking the home office from
Wahoo, Nebraska for those of you get the reference
It's not really Wahoo, Nebraska, but from Bloomington,
Indiana then we'll be over in Union, Kentucky
just across the river from Cincinnati from that
for the next episode and the following episodes
of ham talk live so enjoy some of the reruns
over on WTWW the next couple of weeks. And then
we'll be back June 10th with another live episode.
So for a list of our upcoming guests, just go
to hamtalklive .com. And if you like the show,
please leave us a review. That helps others find
us faster. So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
saying seven three, seven five, and may the good
DX be yours. Well you came right back to my secure
call Your readability five and strength nine
You never once mentioned your weather at all
And I didn't mention mine We talked and talked
for hours and hours