With 5G towers being installed throughout Australia, one of the questions I’m receiving a lot right now is, “how do I find mobile phone tower locations near me?”. This is often followed by, “how far away from mobile phone towers should I live?”.

I’ll start by saying it’s not just mobile phone towers near our homes that we need to be wary of but power lines too.

Both mobile phone towers and power lines are a proven risk to ours and our children’s health. I’ve written about the health impacts of power lines previously, so for today let’s talk about mobile phone towers.

Why are mobile phone towers a growing health risk?

Mobile phone towers send and receive high-frequency radio waves, also known as electromagnetic radiation, or EMF.

When you make a phone call, the signals are transmitted between the phone antenna and the antenna at the nearest base station.

As the usage of mobile phones increases, more receivers and transmitters are installed. You’ll find them on tall buildings, on top of commercial sites, and outside homes on the power poles that line the streets.

It is estimated that there are about 7 million physical base stations worldwide! This number is growing rapidly as 5G technology rolls out.

Naturally, having more mobile phone towers in our environment means an overall increase in the exposure to EMF from this source.

However, the closer you live to a mobile phone tower, the stronger your exposure to the high-frequency radio waves and the longer you will be exposed over time.

As Dr Martin Blank explains in ‘Overpowered’, serious illness including cancer clusters have been found close to mobile phone towers. In a case known as the “Towers-of-Doom”, two cell masts on a five-storey apartment building in London caused many health problems in residents especially those living in top floors and seven detectable cancers including bowel, breast and uterine cancer.  The cancer rate on the top floor was ten times the national average.

In another Japanese study, research was undertaken to investigate the validity of concerns about whether chronic exposure to radiofrequency EMF emitted from mobile phone base station antennas could cause adverse health effects.

They assessed the health of the residents of a condominium on which a mobile phone base station with sets of antennas had been installed both before and after the antennas were decommissioned. In several cases, significant effects on the inhabitants’ health could be proven. This included chronic fatigue, dizziness, vertigo, headaches, eye pain, dry eyes, eye infections, insomnia and nosebleeds.

The health of these inhabitants was shown to improve after the removal of the antennas, and the researchers could identify no other factors that could explain this health improvement.

In a 2011 review of published research, demonstrable carcinogenic effects were noted as a result of long-term (greater than ten years) exposure to high frequency-radiation typical of mobile phone towers. Even one year “dramatically increased the risk of cancer”. In one study it was noted that those living within 400m of a phone tower had three times the rate of cancer than those further away.

Clearly, this is a problem.

And unless you’ve been living under a rock you will know that, unfortunately, things are about to get a lot worse with the rollout of the new 5G technology, which will be using a much more powerful wavelength than the previous 2G, 3G and 4G technologies.

RELATED: Why is Water Important in a 5G World?

The reason for concern was summed up quite nicely in a letter sent to EU officials by Dr. Martin Pall (Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University) who stated that “5G is being rolled out without a single biological test to prove its safety on human beings, animals and nature”.

Physicists Yuri Feldman and Paul Ben-Ishai found that the millimetre waves central to 5G technology uniquely penetrate the skin with a very high absorption rate in the sweat ducts rendering it an antenna on your body.

These frequencies have this effect because the 5G sub-THz (high gigahertz) band wavelengths are similar in size to the human sweat duct. The longer wavelengths used in 2G, 3G and 4G technology do not preferentially absorb into sweat ducts due to their size.

These researchers are clear: this interaction is not ‘debatable’ but a ‘proven’ interaction.

Their paper concluded by stating “We are raising a clear warning flag against the unrestricted use of sub-THz technologies for communication before the possible consequences for public health are explored. Other science experts and doctors are predicting that as a result of this interaction we will see an unprecedented increase in many diseases.

This was laid out in no uncertain terms by Dr Martin Pall in a letter to Governor Jerry Brown in 2017:

1. Very large increases in blindness from each of the four major causes of blindness: cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma and retinal detachment.
2. Large increases in hearing loss and tinnitus, leading in many cases to deafness.
3. Very large increases in male infertility, as well as universal drops in sperm count.
4. Very substantial numbers of melanoma skin cancer and leukemia and possibly other types of cancer. EMFs appear to be particularly active in causing cancer in children and consequently, children are at special risk from 5G.
5. Impacts on the peripheral nervous system leading to near-universal neuropathic pain and peripheral neuropathy.
6. Large increases in thyroid dysfunction, because of the location of the thyroid gland near the surface of the body.
7. Impacts on the immune system cells, possibly leading to autoimmune diseases and other deficiencies.
8. Impacts on the erythrocytes (red blood cells) leading to very low oxygen in the tissues and lowered nutrients transport to the tissues.

How to find mobile phone tower locations near you

My go-to resource for uncovering mobile phone tower locations and the information about these is the Radio Frequency National Site Archive (RFNSA) website.

Here you can input the suburb for your home or business and see the location of any mobile phone tower nearby.

By clicking the tower you’d like to know more about, you can also see which generation of wireless technology the tower transmits; 2G, 3G, 4G, or 5G. If it’s colour-coded in blue the tower is proposed, otherwise, it’s existing.

The higher the generation, the higher the frequency and intensity of the radio waves.

A word of caution though! As 5G is only in the process of being rolled out in Australia, you will need to keep checking back in to find out where the latest proposals are. You may be ‘5G-free’ today but not tomorrow.

How far away from mobile phone towers should you live?

If I gave you a precise answer to this I’d be misleading you. But I can tell you this. The worst exposure is usually within about 300m of a tower, which you will see if you exam the Environmental EME reports on the RFNSA website.

If a new 5G transmitter is installed on a tower in your area, and you already live within 300m of it, the radiation you are exposed to will increase significantly.

Does that mean you are safe at 300m or even 3000m? You won’t know unless you test.

Do you get mobile phone reception in your home? If so, you are being exposed to radiation but whether the amount is problematic or not is another question.

I’ve measured homes 1.5km from 3G and 4G mobile phone towers and they are being hammered by radiation. I’ve measured homes 300m from towers and they are within acceptable ranges.

Why?

Because your exposure depends on many things. Here a few factors that may possibly increase your exposure risk:

• The mobile phone tower is in direct line of sight from your home.
• The phone mast is installed on your building or within a few hundred metres of it.
• You live in a two-storey home or an apartment block.
• Your house is exposed with no shielding from surrounding homes.
• The nearest mobile phone tower has numerous antennas.
• Your home is located between a couple of mobile phone towers that are “talking” to each other – you are in the cross-fire.
• The area you live in is flat topographically with no trees leaving you exposed with no natural shielding from the earth.

As you have probably worked out I can’t stress enough the importance of actually measuring your EMF exposure, instead of relying on general guidelines.

Whilst there are studies that have linked increased cancer risks with certain distances from phone towers it has to be emphasised that each case is different. Each tower will have different antennas with various strength and completely different surrounding topography and shielding.

Furthermore, as we keep on moving up the EMF spectrum with new generations (e.g. 3G to 4G, or 5G) what was valid 10 years ago may not be valid today.

Using an affordable EMF meter like those from Radmeter and Mitometer, you can get a good idea of the levels of radiation from external and internal sources within your home. This is truly the best way to ensure you are doing all you can to reduce your exposure to EMF.

How to protect yourself from mobile phone tower EMF

If you discover a base station or antenna is due to be installed close to your home, or you’ve simply woken up one day to find a new tower or 5G “small cell” on the street outside, there are actions you can take, such as:

• Join an existing 5G action group in your suburb OR;
• Inform your neighbours of the risks and start a Facebook Group to start taking action as a community
• Measure and document current EMF readings
• If you suffer from EHS or other symptoms associated with EMF exposure, visit your doctor and get a letter with your GP’s opinion on the impact on your health
• Contact your local councillors in an effort to get them on your side
• Lobby your local council to make it clear you do not consent to the proposed mobile phone tower installation and demand they issue an abatement order – be sure to include all of your collected evidence in this!

There’s a really helpful video from the Perth 5G Action Event that goes through these points in more detail. It’s also worth noting that these steps are equally valid for existing towers of any frequency (3G, 4G) and not just those proposed.

In the meantime, protect your family by reducing EMF exposure in your home as much as possible.

To protect your home from external sources of electromagnetic radiation such as mobile phone towers or neighbours’ routers you can:

Use shielding paint and window fabric

Geovital a global leader in EMF protection and shielding probably sells the best shielding paint on the market. It will block 99.99% of high-frequency radiation, up to 10GHz. This easily covers the mid-band of frequencies currently being introduced with 5G. The paint also provides good coverage up to 20Ghz.

This is the best way to shield your home from external sources along with shielding fabric for the windows and your floors (depending on what level you live on). But always seek the advice from an EMF professional before you go ahead and order materials because sometimes you can do more harm than good and you really want to make sure it’s warranted before purchasing.

If 5G is ever implemented in what is called the millimetre wavelength i.e. about 24Ghz and above, you will need to get creative in ways to protect yourself.

Living away from populated areas where 5G is a lot more cost-effective to roll-out is probably your best defence.

Inside your home, there are often a few key sources of electromagnetic radiation, including:

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Digital smart meters

You may not even realise you have a smart meter in your home so do some investigation. Does someone still come to read your meter? If so, it’s not a smart meter.

If you do have one, call your power company and ask them to disable the smart functions or, even better, replace it with an analogue meter. It can be a complicated topic depending on where you live so I’ve written an entire post on smart meters and the health impacts.

Router and other wireless technology

Convenience comes at a cost. The best way to reduce exposure to EMF in your home is to stop using WiFi altogether and go back to a hard-wired ethernet cable for internet connection. Ethernet is faster, safer and more secure than any wireless connection.

Never put your mobile phone to your head or store it close to your body unless it’s on airplane mode and avoid wireless headphones and Bluetooth devices.

Microwave ovens

They are called microwaves for a reason! If you can’t do without it completely swap it out for steam oven or a toaster oven. Certainly, never let a child stand in front of a microwave when it’s operating.

Invite an EMF professional to assess your home

This article is just the start of all the practical information I can give you about EMF in your home. As part of the EMF Assessments I offer both in-home and online, we talk about your specific home and lifestyle, before I customise actions and recommendations for your circumstances and budget.

Read more blogs about EMF

Empower yourself with the knowledge to make changes that will improve your wellbeing by reading my library of blogs about the topic of EMF, including how to protect our little ones from EMF from mobile phones and other devices.

The more we educate ourselves about mobile phone tower locations and the like, the better we can protect ourselves. If you have any questions on this topic, feel free to contact me, I’d love to help you with a personalised EMF Assessment.