A survey of the urban radiofrequency (RF) environment

In 1980, Tell and Mantiply published a study of radiofrequency (RF) fields measured across 15 major metropolitan areas in the USA. They required a van fully equipped with instrumentation and computing capability for their measurements. This study aimed to assess whether and how hand-held instrumentation available today would facilitate and enhance the efficiency of large-scale surveys of ambient RF fields. In addition, the data would provide a suggestion as to how the profile of ambient RF fields has changed with respect to frequency content and magnitude. Not unexpectedly, the relative power densities were orders of magnitude lower than the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) maximum permissible exposure (MPE) for the general public, with a maximum time-averaged value across the VHF-FM-UHF-cellular bands of 0.12 % of the MPE (AM's contribution was negligible). In both the 1980 and the present study, the power density in the FM band was a major contributor to overall power density, but over time, power densities in the VHF and UHF band decreased and increased, respectively. From the perspective of absolute power density, the wideband values in the 1980 study, this study and any number of assessments conducted in European nations are not generally different from one another. (authors)