I AM afraid that your correspondent Miss E Baxandall has, like many others, confused the very slight unproven risk that over extensive use of a mobile phone might just conceivably present, with that of a mobile phone mast.

A typical mast 100 feet high and beamed at the horizon will give its maximum ground level signal strength at a distance of around 500 feet.

Radio signals reduce in strength in proportion to the square of the distance.

Even allowing for the increased power used at a base station, if miss Baxandall cares to stand at this point of maximum signal, her brain will receive around one millionth of the radiation that it would receive where she to use a phone herself.

If there were any risks at this level, users of mobile phones, (and those living near to BBC and ITV masts running thousands of times more power at similar frequencies) would be 'dropping like flies.'

Harry Leeming

(retired radio and electronics technician)

Morecambe