I RESPOND to the letter from Mr Stuart Kay (Aug 6) who complained that the programme of his car alarm had been corrupted by interference from the mobile phone base station at the Longfield Centre in Prestwich.

My previous comments have been about health concerns relating to mobile phone base stations, but the point raised by Mr Kay is clearly of general interest and I will therefore comment upon it.

Firstly, the base station, like any other which has been licensed to operate in this country, is operating on a frequency which has been allocated to it for mobile phone base station use (and for no other purpose). The assumption which is made by the licensing authorities is that, provided stations operate within the legal consent limits on the allocated frequencies, then they should not interfere with other services.

In recent years, however, the use of the electromagnetic spectrum by different services has proliferated. For that reason it has become important to ensure that equipment is immune to interference from transmissions from other services so that its reliability can be guaranteed.

There are now international standards for most kinds of electronic equipment which include a specification for immunity to interference by other services. It would appear - if what Mr Kay says is correct - that his car alarm does not comply with these international standards.

If my supposition is correct, then unfortunately Mr Kay's car alarm will also be susceptible to interference from the passing users of hand-held mobile phones, particularly since the signal strength from nearby mobile phones will be far greater than that caused by a base station.

I agree that the point raised by Mr Kay is an important one, but I suggest that the remedy is for the suppliers and installers of important equipment, such as car alarms, to ensure that their equipment meets the international standards for immunity to interference by transmissions from other services. I make this suggestion since it is pretty obvious to me that, regardless of either Mr Kay's wishes or my own, mobile phones are certainly not going to go away!

COUNCILLOR DEREK BODEN,

leader of the council.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.