When I started teaching the General Class license course a couple of years ago, one of the things I needed to learn about was RF safety. Back in the old days when I got my General (1971), I don’t recall having to answer any questions on this topic at all.
As I’ve mentioned before, all that you need to know can be found in FCC OET Bulletin No. 65, but while the information may all be there, using it is another matter. Well, to make RF safety more practical, the University of Texas ARC offers an online RF Exposure Safety Calculator. The program calculates the RF power density in the main beam of an antenna.
All you need to do is enter the power being supplied to the antenna, frequency, an antenna gain factor (2.2 for dipoles), and distance from the antenna to the area of interest. The program then calculates the RF power density of this arrangement, compares it to the limits, and tells you if you’re safe or not. It will also tell you how far away you have to be to be safe. Very cool.
K6MAP says
The RF Calculator link may get more mileage by using:
http://n5xu.ece.utexas.edu/rfsafety/
-Mark