Youtube link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_0IUW2Ikio

This kind of nonsense can only harm genuine causes. It justifies me breaking into your house and putting your computer "beyond use" just in case the radiation from the moniter harms someone.

Please provide some proof that there is a connection between medium wave radio stations and harm to sentient beings that exceeds the risk posed by someone dropping the tower!

I'm a big fan of the ELF in general, but I would be interested to see links to evidence that these kind of radio masts do have health and environmental risks. And real double-blind studies, not just anecdotal evidence.

I assume they are similar to mobile phone masts? Maybe someone technical can explain the differences. Do they have a larger range than mobile phones masts and so are more powerful? What about the frequencies used?

There is a lot of crackpottery and tinfoil-hattedness around these kind of issues, so it's difficult to separate reality from pseudo-science. I'm open-minded though, maybe there are bad health effects. I can imagine them playing havoc with migrating birds, for example.

Are different types of radio masts e.g. FM radio supposed to be safer, or are they all bad?

so, could this technique be used on other tall towers that are more commonly found in the US and UK landscape?

While demonstrably an effective technique, and of negligble risk to anyone else, it seems to have been very risky / brave / suicidal for the activists themselves. Dropping a mast is like felling a tree, it won't necessarily fall where you intend it too.

Bigger masts tend to be have four high-tension cables to secure the structure against wind. Cutting one of these in the direction you don't want it to drop, careful of the recoil, and then cutting one of the masts legs in the direction you do want it to fall seems the safest method. Good luck with that though, you'll need it.

This isn't pseudo-science, it is merely under-researched because it is in nobodys commercial interests to make the link. Apart from the seemingly obvious but unexplained correlation in the early 20th century between the start of mass radio transmissions and the first reports of childhood leukemia and brain cancers, there have been recent correlating scientific investigations such as:

Incidence of cancer in the vicinity of Korean AM radio transmitters.
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15859510

Cancer incidence near radio and television transmitters in Great Britain. I. Sutton Coldfield transmitter.
 http://www.emf-portal.org/viewer.php?sid=&sform=&aid=1930&l=e


Unmodulated radio waves are relatively safe
 http://www.mastsanity.org/

It has been known since the work of Suzanne Bawin and her co-workers in the mid 1970s that pure low power radio waves, of strengths similar to those used by cell phones, are relatively harmless. Pretty much the only damage that can be done by an unmodulated signal is due to the heating effect of the radiation as it passes through the body, and the ICNIRP safety guidelines adopted by many governments are more than adequate to protect you against that.

Modulated radio waves are not safe

Bawin et al. also showed that the situation changes drastically when the signal is "amplitude modulated" so that its strength rises and falls in time with a lower frequency. In particular, they found that signals that were far too weak to generate significant heat, could now drive structurally important calcium from the surfaces of brain cells. Other work showed that pulses with very sharp rise and fall times were even more effective. The loss of this calcium weakens the membrane and makes it more likely to leak and gives unwanted biological effects.

www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html

""CAN PEOPLE BE EXPOSED TO LEVELS OF RADIOFREQUENCY RADIATION THAT COULD BE HARMFUL?

Studies have shown that environmental levels of RF energy routinely encountered by the general public are typically far below levels necessary to produce significant heating and increased body temperature. However, there may be situations, particularly in workplace environments near high-powered RF sources, where the recommended limits for safe exposure of human beings to RF energy could be exceeded. In such cases, restrictive measures or mitigation actions may be necessary to ensure the safe use of RF energy.""

 http://www.arrl.org/news/rfsafety/hbkrf.html this page is from amateur radio enthusiasts many of whom are trained above professional standards

THis document seems to be proof that there needs to be simple devices near radio masts to scare birds away as used by the aviation industry
www.iddd.de/umtsno/lebewesen/BirdsharmedbyRFradiation.doc

Radio waves obey an inverse square law - in plain language that means if you move twice as far away from the source, the signal becomes four times weaker. So it drops off very rapidly.

That would explain why people working on the mast or birds perching on it might be at much greater risk that someone a short distance away.

Interesting topic though. But I guess there are too many vested interests in society to suddenly write off all radio transmissions.

There is a discussion over on the geek website Slashdot at the moment about this:
 http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/05/1755238/ELF-Knocks-Down-AM-Towers-To-Save-Earth-Intercoms
Most of the comments are rabid Daily Mail style frothings from anal retentives who are too sucked in by the establishment, but there are some interesting ones too.

e.g. "But they are right about the interference issue. I live a little more than a mile away from AM towers, and they cause all kinds of goofy stuff. Anything with speakers or headphones is an AM radio here. I had to buy new equipment to get rid of the interference via trial and error with my wallet."

Also, From the Seattle Times, a conspiracy theory:
 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009809764_radiotowers05m.html

"Andy Skotdal, general manager of the family-owned sports-radio station, isn't convinced ELF is responsible, even though the group's North American press office in Washington, D.C., issued a news release and posted an item on its national Web site Friday saying it was.

He suspects disgruntled locals who have long opposed the siting of the towers on 40 acres of farmland may have taken matters into their own hands after losing a key ruling in King County Superior Court a few weeks ago.

"My suspicion is, it's somebody local," Skotdal, whose family has owned the station for 20 years, said by phone Friday as he watched dozens of sheriff's detectives and FBI agents comb the property for evidence. "It could be somebody painting ELF on a banner to throw off suspicion."

Radio is only dangerous at certain frequencies. For example, microwave ovens operate at high power (around 700 watts on around 2.4Ghz) and would quickly kill you. Wifi modems operate on the same fequency but at under a watt output pose an insignificant risk to health.

Only certain radio bands are dangerous to humans. These are mostly confined to the microwave bands. Outside these frequencies the risk drops massively.

Medium wave broadcasts operate at too low a frequency to "couple" effectively with human/animal/plant tissue. Granted, I wouldnt want to live underneath one just as i wouldnt live under a power grid pylon, because of magnetic coupling. But, as been pointed out, the power density decreases logrithmicly meaning that the magnetic field will dissipate in a couple of hundred metres. This is why medium wave sites are found in fields and not the centre of town. The magnetic field of VHF (where you find your FM stereo broadcasts) is even smaller confined to around 10 metres from the antenna.

Most radio does not rely on the magnetic field produced by the aerial. Instead it relies on the electric field (yes, there are two types of signal produced in any transmission!). This is not dangerous unless you physically touch a live antenna.

You may wonder what i mean when i talk of the "risk dropping massively". I will try and put it into context. We have always been surrounded by radio waves at all frequencies. That is the 'static' you hear when you tune between radio stations. Its eveywhere, on every frequency, between sound and light and beyond. once you are out of the magnetic field coverage you will subject yourself to less emissions than you would experience, sunbathing, listening to a band or taking part in a "contact" activity such as attending a peaceful demo! Just as a body can safely tolerate an excess of light or sound, building its own defences against them over millions of years so can it tolerate radio. The limits are well known and easily put into practice when designing a radio stations antenna system.

So please, dont worry about radio masts/antennas. What is more important is the message that they broadcast. Thats an issue for another campaign.....

Way to destroy your credibility in the time it takes to knock a couple of aerials over.

>Radio is only dangerous at certain frequencies. For example, microwave ovens operate at high power (around 700 watts on around 2.4Ghz) and would quickly kill you. Wifi modems operate on the same fequency but at under a watt output pose an insignificant risk to health.

You have used an example of the dangers of different power of transmissions on the same frequency to try justify that only certain frequencies are dangerous. Perhaps you wish to reword that so it makes sense.

>Medium wave broadcasts operate at too low a frequency to "couple" effectively with human/animal/plant tissue.

You mean unmodulated medium wave broadcasts, but this was a modulated transmitter mast, as most are.

>Just as a body can safely tolerate an excess of light or sound, building its own defences against them over millions of years so can it tolerate radio.

You are saying that a tolerance built up over millions of years can suddenly evolve in a hundred years? The radio to microwave transmission spectrum is virtually absent in nature on earth which is why we are able to easily transmit on them. Every cell of your body receives every radio transmission in range, you don't know it because you can't sense it. These signals aren't just radio stations but a sea of overlapping transmissions used for every mundane and unneccessary reason - for example, to stop shopping trolleys leave a parking lot. Most of these signals are modulated and none of them occur naturally so life evolved for billions (not millions) of years without these signals present and won't suddenly have evolved in a 100 years to safeguard against any damage that they may cause. So that argument falls flat on it's face.

Besides, life evolved in a natural background of both ionising and non-ionising radiation, given the amount of uranium naturally present in the eco-sphere. By your argument, this must also be safe too so why bother putting concrete and steel around nuclear reactors? We've evolved breathing in uranium dust after all so it can't be harmful - right?

You could argue that these new transmissions are harmless, but to argue they are harmless because we evolved around them is obviously wrong. You fairly asked for studies that indicate such damage. I've provided two such studies but the mast-sanity site lists to 194. I don't particularly respect any self-professed 'techie', particularly one who can't spell the word, but even if you are a highly qualified RF engineer it doesn't give your opinion on the biological or epidemiological effects of the transmissions the slightest validity.

>Granted, I wouldnt want to live underneath one just as i wouldnt live under a power grid pylon, because of magnetic coupling....So please, dont worry about radio masts/antennas.

In fact, you are saying they are too dangerous for you to wish to live under one and yet you go on to claim that the plethora of transmitters we surround ourself with are nothing to be worried about. Now that's what I call pseudo-science. Your choice not to live under a radio pylon - presumably you mean near one not directly under it - is a precautionary principle that you see as perfectly sensible. The toppling of this mast is someone elses interpretation of the precautionary principle. It might not make them that much safer, but it might and the only thing they have lost is a radio sports news channel.

Another radio mast toppled on the same day in Pennsylvania:

 http://www.mcall.com/news/all-a8_5tower.7011612sep05,0,7619214.story

WAEB radio tower toppled in Whitehall, FBI investigates

A 350 foot-tall WAEB radio tower in Whitehall Township was intentionally toppled Friday morning, when it's support wires were cut township police say. The tower is one of five on the S. Church Rd. property, west of MacArthur Road.

By Frank Warner Of The Morning Call
September 5, 2009

A 350-foot-tall WAEB radio tower crashed to the ground early Friday in Whitehall Township after its support cables were cut, township police said.

Five hours later, two radio towers near Everett, Wash., were knocked to the ground by a bulldozer in what officials feared was an act of eco-terrorism.

The FBI said Friday night is looking into the possibility the two crimes are linked.

''The FBI is aware of [the Whitehall case] and is going to be looking into it,'' said J.J. Klaver, FBI special agent in Philadelphia. ''I don't want to venture a guess as to whether the two things are related. That's probably premature.''

Klaver added, however, that it is extraordinary that one radio tower would be toppled in the East and two would fall in the West on the same morning.

''These are somewhat unusual incidents,'' he said. ''To have radio towers collapse, I think, is unusual. I've never heard of one radio tower collapsing.''

So far, he said, Whitehall police have the case. The FBI would take a closer look only if its agents found it likely a federal law had been violated.

The WAEB tower, one of five identical towers owned by Clear Channel in a Whitehall field west of MacArthur Road, lay in red and white pieces. Whitehall police said it came down between 1 and 1:30 a.m.

The radio tower property is three miles north of Route 22. Until Friday, the toppled tower stood at the northern end of the property.

''It looks like some of the cables were cut,'' a township police spokesman said. ''It appears to be criminal mischief. The Detective Division has the case.''

No one was injured, and no homes or commercial buildings in the area were damaged, the spokesman said.

WAEB continued to broadcast without interruption Friday, station Program Director Craig Stevens said by e-mail. He said the station adjusted quickly to operate with only four of the five towers.

In Washington state around 3:30 a.m. Pacific time, authorities said, a bulldozer was used to topple two towers of Everett radio station KRKO. One of the towers was 350 feet tall; the other was shorter.

An ''ELF'' sign was left at the Everett area scene, but officials could not confirm the destruction was the work of the anti-development Earth Liberation Front.

The KRKO station was planning to add radio towers, and ELF members were known to oppose the plan. There were no similar expansion plans in Whitehall.

Whitehall Planning Commission member Dick Drosnock said Friday the Whitehall towers have not been controversial.

''I don't know that they have been mentioned at any meeting,'' he said.