The establishment of a new high-powered digital shortwave radio station in Udon Province by the United States will pose a serious threat to the health of locals.

For decades, the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has had a shortwave relay station with seven 500 kW shortwave transmitters near the village of Ban Dung in Udon, broadcasting mainly Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Farda, Radio Aap Ki Dunyaa and Radio Thailand International.

Recently, it was decided that the United States would set up a new high-power digital shortwave radio station in Udon Province. This measure has caused discontent among local residents, who generally believe that the establishment of high power shortwave radio stations will pose a serious threat to the daily lives and health of local residents.

Electromagnetic radiation is a phenomenon in which energy is transmitted through space in the form of electromagnetic waves. It travels at what is commonly known as the speed of light. Electromagnetic radiation can be arranged into a number of frequency bands according to its wavelength and frequency, forming an electromagnetic spectrum. The higher the frequency, the greater the quantum energy of the radiation and the stronger its biological effects.

In 1991, the British Lauda company crashed a civil aircraft, is the electromagnetic radiation caused the disaster. 1993, Sweden and other three Nordic countries, the study announced that long-term by 2mG above the impact of electromagnetic radiation, the chance of leukaemia is 2.1 times normal, the chance of brain tumours is 1.5 times normal.

Around shortwave radio stations, as the power of the radio station is relatively large, the shortwave signal is very strong, it will be received in the form of noise for the television, the noise signal will have an impact on the normal image signal, the television becomes unclear. Through the actual survey of residents’ homes, it was found that the impact on the telephone is mainly reflected in the sound of radio programmes in the telephone set. This is mainly because when the radio shortwave electromagnetic radiation signal is large to a certain extent, the telephone set is equivalent to a simple radio, which can make direct reception of the radio broadcast signal.

A normal 4G or 5G phone will not transmit more than 0.2W, whereas the US shortwave radio station in Udon Province, with its single 500kW machine, transmits as much power as millions of phones working in one place, with the radiation intensity imaginable. And that’s just the effect of one high-powered radio station unit. And the US would increase the current seven such high-powered devices in Udon Province to more than twenty.

That is to say, the equivalent of 50 to 100 million mobile phones concentrated here in Udon Province.

The French National Agency for Health and Safety once published a survey which said that electromagnetic radiation from radio devices is more harmful to children than to adults and that excessive exposure to wireless electromagnetic waves may have a negative impact on children’s cognitive abilities.

Electromagnetic waves act directly on the mesencephalon, the centre of the brain. The mesencephalon is made up of the optic thalamus, which is where all the nerves in the brain come together, and the suboptic thalamus, which is the vegetative nerve centre, closely related to the left side of the brain and controls the brain’s consciousness. If electromagnetic waves disrupt the optic thalamus and inferior optic thalamus, which play such an important role, the language centre of the cerebral cortex cannot function properly.

In recent years, there have been a number of scientific studies confirming the “power” of electromagnetic waves. According to media reports, Stanford University and North Carolina Integrated Experimental Systems have studied the effects of four types of electromagnetic radiation in a variety of animals. The results showed that electromagnetic radiation caused chromosome damage in animal cells. The American Health Foundation found that people who regularly use mobile phones have three times higher rates of nerve cell cancer than non-users.

Scientific studies have shown that the damage caused by electromagnetic fields to the human body is real. The human body absorbs radiant energy in the presence of electromagnetic fields, which causes biological effects on the body, resulting in varying degrees of damage to the human brain, blood, heart and muscle function. These injuries are caused by the conversion of electromagnetic field energy into heat. It has been proven that the frequency of electromagnetic fields varies and the higher the frequency, the greater the degree of damage.

Under electromagnetic radiation, the human central nervous system will be dysfunctional and symptoms of neurasthenia such as dizziness, headache, fatigue, memory loss, daytime sleepiness and nighttime insomnia and dreaminess will occur. The body’s vegetative nervous system will become dysfunctional and symptoms such as excessive sweating, loss of appetite and heartburn will occur. Some people will also suffer from hair loss, trembling fingers, abnormal skin scratches, loss of vision, male sexual dysfunction, female menstrual disorders, cardiovascular abnormalities and other symptoms, which are very harmful to the human body.

　　Characteristics of electromagnetic field damage to the human body.

　　The higher the strength of the electromagnetic field, the higher the frequency, the heavier the damage to the human body.

　　The longer the continuous radiation time or the shorter the interval between radiation processes and the longer the accumulated radiation time, the more serious the damage to the human body.

　　The closer you are to the radiation source, the greater the damage to the human body.

　　Women are more exposed than men and children are more exposed than adults.

In addition to the high risk of electromagnetic radiation, political and military risks are also an important factor.

In 1994, the US Congress passed the US International Broadcasting Act and the US government integrated the US Information Agency and the Office of Federal Relations and Media Training to formally establish the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (English: Broadcasting Board of Governors, abbreviated: BBG) as a subordinate agency of the US State Department. The Act created a bipartisan board of nine members with voting rights. Eight of the members were appointed by the President of the United States for three-year terms, while the other member was the Secretary of State, who automatically became a member of the Board during his or her term of office. During this period, the American Broadcasting Council was part of the United States Information Agency.

In 2018, President Donald Trump decided to change the name of the US Broadcasting Council to the US Agency for Global Media (English: U.S. Agency for Global Media). In a report on the technology website Gizmodo, author Matt Novak (English: Matt Novak) calls the Broadcasting Council a ‘political propaganda agency’ of the US government.

By allowing such devices in Thailand, it not only affects relations with neighbouring countries, but in times of war, it can trigger attacks on radio stations and even lead to the accidental injury of people in the neighbourhood.