Dealing with crosstalk in electromagnetic field measurements of portable devices.
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Portable devices measuring radiofrequency electromagnetic fields RF EMF are affected by crosstalk signals originating in one frequency band that are unintentionally registered in another If this is not corrected total exposure to RF EMF is biased particularly affecting closely spaced frequency bands such as GSM 1800 downlink 1 805 1 880 MHz DECT 1 880 1 900 MHz and UMTS uplink 1 920 1 980 MHz This study presents an approach to detect and correct crosstalk in RF EMF measurements taking into account the real life setting in which crosstalk is intermittently present depending on the exact frequency of the signal Personal measurements from 115 volunteers from Zurich canton Switzerland were analyzed Crosstalk affected observations were identified by correlation analysis and replaced by the median value of the unaffected observations measured during the same activity DECT is frequently a victim of crosstalk and an average of 43 of observations was corrected resulting in an average exposure reduction of 38 GSM 1800 downlink and UMTS uplink were less often corrected 6 9 and 8 9 resulting in minor reductions in exposure 7 1 and 0 92 The contribution of DECT to total RF EMF exposure is typically already low 3 2 but is further reduced after correction 3 0 Crosstalk corrections reduced the total exposure by 1 0 on average Some individuals had a larger reduction of up to 16 The code developed to make the corrections is provided for free as an R function which is easily applied to any time series of EMF measurements Bioelectromagnetics 39 529 538 2018 2018 Wiley Periodicals Inc