simplification

As Lachlan (in a private message) showed interest in practical measurement / shielding for general public purposes, I am trying to put my experience in several very simple items.
It is maybe too simplified, but for practical purposes I don't see much to be added at the moment, although I would appreciate anybody's contribution, including disagreements.

a) Estimate the extent of safety you want to achieve at the particular place. (You can think of say 4 arbitrary subsequent category levels: "ES", "Healthwise", "Normal", and "Brave" :-). You have to set the physical limits for the levels yourself, useful reference could be the recommendation at www.electrosmog.com site.)

b) Estimate the current radiation ranking at the place by taking just two measures: one with a meter that monitors ELF (simple Gaussmeter, preferably capable of monitoring kHz range as well) and the second by a simple integral (not analyzer) HF meter (MHz and GHz range).

c) First observe the ELF range ranking - the reading comes generally from power frequency and generally there are two cases. If the source of reading is proximity to some electric device (TV, fridge, a home fuse box, etc), than moving around significantly changes the readings as you move away from the source, so that is the way to mitigate the radiation.
If the reason for such readings are stray currents, moving changes the readings much less. In that case no simple mitigation is possible except potential preventing the current leakage (within the home, or more often it comes from the whole neighborhood!), which could be very tricky.

d) Trying to fix the HF readings is worth only if it is overranking the LF, otherwise it won't have much practical effect. Generally, the source is easily detectable with a sensitive (but cheap) meter and it usually is a mobile phone base station, a radio / TV transmitter, a radar, or a home wireless phone in the neighborhood, wireless LAN, communication antennae etc.. Putting a protective screen against the source should mitigate a lot of the readings.

The most benefit of the above steps is awareness of the problem and ranking the possible influence, so that you could compare your feeling with the one at a better place. Also, if some simple adjustments could mitigate the exposure, the better.

Naturally, if mitigation fails, there are "our magic devices", Faraday cages, Mumetal shields, etc, but much involvement and experimentation is needed and still none of the solutions is guaranteed to do the job, except moving from the place (what I have finally done :-)).

Personally, I keep experimenting, but I am highly sensitive, and that has dedicated my life a lot. For a person who can work at a computer, and who is like you say for yourself, not extremely sensitive, I don't see any reason to involve in anything more than the simple steps above, although I would have liked to have more people like me to communicate with them ;-)...

Drasko


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