Antenna search

1. AntennaSearch.com A mashup of Google maps and the location of towers and antennas!

2. What is AntennaSearch.com? Antenna Search places 1,909,615 cell towers and antennas onto Google maps to determine cell reception in an area. When you enter a specific address, the application creates a map that shows existing towers, future towers, and antennas. Cell Phone Towers around the University of Toledo!

3. Why would YOU need to know where towers or antennas are located? This is a tool that the average person can use to determine whether your cell phone carrier has good or poor coverage in a given area. It is also important to know the locations of cell phone towers because of the radiation levels that are emitted from them. Most scientists agree that cell phone antennas or towers are unlikely to cause cancer, however, very few human studies have focused specifically on cellular phone towers and cancer risk.

4. Benefits to Teaching & Learning Using AntennaSearch.com will engage students in a meaningful learning activity that is of high relevance to teenagers . What teenager would be happy if they were unable to get connection in a certain area? Also , using this application will always provide them with the most up to date information regarding the placement of cell phone towers and antennas. Textbooks cannot provide this unless they are continually purchased and updated.

5. Using AntennaSearch.com in the classroom Cell towers can determine how strong a signal is to a specific phone and the general direction the phone is from the tower. In geometry or precalculus class, students can use this idea with the Law of Sines and the Law of Cosines problems to determine the location of a person making a phone call in a specific area . Another project involves students learning about the concept of area and its relationship to linear measurement. A real-life problem could be to determine where to place as few towers as possible, without overlapping service. Students would learn about constructing circles from their centers and radii.

6. Using AntennaSearch.com in the classroom There are numerous science fair projects that can be developed from using cell phone towers and antennas. Students could determine electromagnetic radiation emitted by different cellphones in different settings at different distances away from the cellphone as a potential safety measure. Another angle that your cell phone science fair projects can have is a medical angle. A student can research if cell phone radiation does affect our health, increases the risks of certain cancers, or compare cell phone radiation to that emitted from a microwave.