New Army Study Says Radiation From Airport Body Scanners Is Minor
A new study of airport body scanners by U.S. Army scientists shows that the machines produce a low dose of radiation, supporting Transportation Security Administration claims that a screening is equivalent to the radiation a passenger gets in two minutes of flying.
The scanners, which use X-rays to check for objects hidden under clothing, have been the subject of controversy about how safe they are and whether they create a cancer risk for the traveling public. Although the study is unlikely to douse those concerns, one critic of the machines called it the most reliable test to date.
"These are the best measurements that have been done," said Peter Rez, an Arizona State University physicist who in April signed a letter to the White House science adviser questioning previous tests . "Things have to be filled in, but it's a step in the right direction."
The study results obtained by ProPublica were presented at a Health Physics Society conference in late June.
The TSA rolled out plans to put full-body scanners at nearly every security lane by 2014 in response to the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane by a man who had explosives hidden is his underwear.
The agency uses two kinds of imagers . In the backscatter machine, a passenger stands between two large blue boxes and is scanned with a narrow X-ray beam that rapidly moves left to right and up and down the body. In the millimeter-wave machine, a passenger enters a chamber that looks like a round phone booth and is scanned with radio-frequency waves.
Although the safety of both machines has been questioned, most of the attention has centered on the backscatter machine because it uses ionizing radiation, which can damage cells and cause cancer.
To reassure travelers, the TSA asked the Army Public Health Command to conduct radiation surveys at airports around the country. The new study, paid for by the TSA and done at a TSA lab, was part of that work.
There is much debate in the field about how little -- or whether any -- radiation is safe.
According to the Army presentation, the average dose to the body was 3.8 microrems per screening, meaning that a person would have to go through the machine more than 5,000 times to exceed the annual dose limit recommended by the American National Standards Institute . By comparison, a chest X-ray produces about 10,000 microrems of radiation.
The test also provides new information about the dose to the skin and eyes, which has been a concern because low energy X-rays deliver a large portion of the radiation to shallow tissues. The Army testers measured the average dose to the lens of the eye at 6.7 microrems and the average skin dose at 11.3 microrems, both of which were extremely low compared to the accepted guidelines.
Airport Scanner Frequencies - News
In the millimeter-wave machine, a passenger enters a chamber that looks like a round phone booth and is scanned with radio-frequency waves. Although the safety of both machines has been questioned, most of the attention has centered on the backscatter
The company states that the scanner, similar to those used at airport checkpoints, uses low-frequency radio waves that aren't harmful. "It's the equivalent of 1/1000th of a cell phone call," Elizabeth Thomas, director of marketing, told Patch by email.
Simpson has never offered specific numbers regarding the frequency of aggressive pat-downs, which have been publicized on the Internet and seem to occur most often when a traveler opts out of stepping into a full-body scanner.
An increasingly common use of imaging outside the hospital is the soft X-ray airport scanner. According to the United Kingdom Health Protection Agency, a full body scan by one of these machines will give a radiation dose of 0.02 to 0.03 microSievert
MHP, Airlines, and SKYWARN - The RadioReference.com Forums
I am new here and yesterday set my pro-106 up using Win500. FYI, I live in Ridgeland and have set up RPD, MPD and JPD and a smattering of other objects. It was pretty straightforward and I have been enjoying it today. I have a couple of questions. I have looked at the TGs and the conventional frequencies and also searched the specific forums, but am hoping to get help with the following: Hey, thanks for the info. I do have a premium membership and used Win500 to load my scanner. What an incredible time saver. When searching for MHP using Win500, I searched using Madison, Rankin, and Hinds county. I found a couple of MHP labeled frequencies on a P25 system, MSWIN, I think, but nothing on conv. Perhaps you can direct me to the proper search parameters. Yeah as the KJAN is in Rankin County, we list it on that page officially. And as mentioned, when your monitoring the TRS, please submit proper LCN order, and any unlisted Talkgroups, and any that are now using ProVoice digital since the changes when they rebanded. Also if you get to monitor the MDOC TRS, please submit any talkgroups we have not id'ed. and if you notice any AEGIS encryption used.
Airport Scanner Frequencies - Bookshelf
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