We’re fielding a lot of questions about which personal monitors should be used for 5G. Just like any other EMF safety application the question is what frequency range do you want to cover?

And here lies the confusion about 5G. There are various 5G frequency band allocations all the way from 700 MHz to 86 GHz. The important point to note is that general network roll out will centre on the lower frequency bands e.g. 700 MHz & 3.5 GHz plus maybe the 26 GHz band and the 60 GHz & 80 GHz frequencies will be used for specific applications. From an EMF safety viewpoint field strengths will be limited at the high frequencies simply because it’s difficult and expensive to generate high power levels at these frequencies.

So to choose a personal monitor it’s not really sufficient to talk about 5G in general terms. You need to identify what 5G bands your personnel will be working with. If it’s 3.5 GHz then it’s an easy relatively low cost solution (Radman 2 LT 50 MHz to 8 GHz). If it’s 26 GHz then it’s still a straightforward solution (Radman 2 XT 900 kHz to 60 GHz), just more expense. If it’s >60 GHz then it’s a more complicated solution where we would look at bespoke calibration of the Nardalert S3. Standard Nardalert S3s are specified to 50 GHz so are suitable for use with 5G frequencies <50 GHz (as is the Nardalert XT) but the thermocouple sensor used in the Nardalert means 100 GHz is potentially achievable.