Missing birds? It's not the radios | Letter to the editor
February 25, 2013 · 3:35 PM
Spurious conclusion. The ice cream truck shows up in the summer. Drownings increase in the summer. Therefore, ice cream causes drownings, right? Or, to use birds: I saw a stork on the day the baby arrived, therefore the stork brought the baby. The meters are using what is called the "ISM" band (Industrial, Scientific, Medical), which allows low power radio transmissions from 902-928MHz. There are thousands of other kinds of devices also using this same band at similar power levels, including millions of cordless phones and baby monitors. The old analog cell phones operated between 824-894MHz. Those phones put out far more power than the meters do, and the cell towers put out hundreds or thousands of times as much power as a meter – and they were running continuously. New cell phones run at around 2450MHz, and their towers put out hundreds of times more RF power than the smart meters. There were and still are birds, frequently sitting right on the cell towers. Mr. Oulette and his neighbors should be looking for a predator or some other natural cause. It's not the radios.
Daniel Morris, Renton
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