Portable Radio Systems Radiation exposure

"Land-mobile" communications include a variety of communications systems that require the use of portable and mobile RF transmitting sources. These systems operate in narrow frequency bands between about 30 and 1,000 MHz. Radio systems used by the police and fire departments, radio paging services, and business radio are a few examples of these communications systems. There are essentially three types of RF transmitters associated with land-mobile systems: base-station transmitters, vehicle-mounted transmitters, and handheld transmitters. The antennas used for these various transmitters are adapted for their specific purpose. For example, a base-station antenna must radiate its signal to a relatively large area, and, therefore, its transmitter generally has to use higher power levels than a vehicle-mounted or handheld radio transmitter. Although these base-station antennas usually operate with higher power levels than other types of land-mobile antennas, they are normally inaccessible to the public since they must be mounted at significant heights above ground to provide for adequate signal coverage. Also, many of these antennas transmit only intermittently. For these reasons, such base-station antennas have generally not been of concern with regard to possible hazardous exposure of the public to RF radiation. Studies at rooftop locations have indicated that high-powered paging antennas may increase the potential for exposure to workers or others with access to such sites, for example, maintenance personnel. Transmitting power levels for vehicle-mounted land-mobile antennas are generally less than those used by base-station antennas but higher than those used for handheld units.

Handheld portable radios such as walkie-talkies are low-powered devices used to transmit and receive messages over relatively short distances. Because of the low power levels used, the intermittence of these transmissions, and the fact that these radios are held away from the head, they should not expose users to RF energy in excess of safe limits. Therefore, the FCC does not require routine documentation of compliance with safety limits for push-to-talk two-way radios.