Clean Ether, First Principles & The TruthCase

We build products to teach the truth — not to wallpaper over broken policy

From day one, RF SAFE has designed products that teach first principles. The QuantaCase® isn’t a talisman; it’s an instructor. Use it correctly and you’ll see what the other designs got wrong — the magnets and plates that detune antennas and trigger power ramp-ups, the big ear-side gaps that break continuity, and the marketing that confuses a fabric swatch with real-world reduction. We exist to fix habits today and to force policy to catch up tomorrow.

“We were early because families deserved tools and truth. Airtube headsets, belly bands, the first anti-radiation cases — and yes, we stopped selling laptop shields when Wi-Fi became standard. I was not going to ‘protect a femur’ while a baby’s torso took the hit. That’s first-principles thinking.” — John Coates

RF SAFE “firsts” (and why they mattered)

• 1998→
  Belly bands and maternity protection — orienting shields correctly, person-first.
• 1999→
  Early laptop shields (discontinued) when Wi-Fi spread — we refused to shift the burden to infants and torsos.
• 2002
  Airtube headsets — reviewed in the Wall Street Journal long before copycats existed.
• Today
  QuantaCase® — antenna-aware, ohmmeter-verifiable, built to train orientation and expose design red flags.

First principles of radiation protection: usage → policy → technology

Protection is one discipline. If you grasp why QuantaCase is built the way it is, you’ll grasp proper usage, the policies that must change, and the indoor technologies that make sense now.

Pillar 1 — Usage (right now)

• ✓
  Shield the person, not the phone: place the shield between you and the phone during calls and carry.
• ✓
  Protect antenna integrity: avoid magnets/plates/loops that detune and force higher transmit power.
• ✓
  Continuity at the ear: no large unshielded ear-side aperture.
• ✓
  Duty-cycle discipline: distance, disable radios you don’t need, airplane mode overnight.
• ✓
  Verification: ohmmeter-checkable shield path.

Pillar 2 — Policy (the rules)

1996 set the table for the mismatch we live with today: heat-only limits and federal preemption that silenced local health concerns. In 2021, a federal court told the FCC to redo its homework. We call the fix a Clean Ether Act:

• 1
  Repeal §704 of the Telecommunications Act: restore local rights to weigh health in siting decisions.
• 2
  Enforce Public Law 90-602: HHS must run a public electronic-product radiation program (research & public information).
• 3
  Mandate Li-Fi indoors: move high-bandwidth payloads to light (IEEE 802.11bb) where practical. Classrooms and bedrooms are not microwave corridors.

Pillar 3 — Technology (the design)

Light-First indoors with antenna-aware accessories. Wire and optical as defaults; use RF only as needed. QuantaCase is not a boast; it’s a coach that makes safer use obvious and measurable.

Why heat-only guidelines failed families (Plain-English proof)

U.S. limits were written to stop heating (SAR). Biology, however, is electrical. Real-world wireless is pulsed and modulated, often with multiple radios on at once. Those envelopes can mis-time ion channels — an electrical error, not a heat rise — while poor signal or detuning pushes phones to shout louder. In 2021, the D.C. Circuit Court called the FCC’s “keep the 1996 limits” decision “arbitrary and capricious” for ignoring non-thermal effects and children, and remanded it. We’re still waiting for a modern answer.

Mechanism: IFO-VGIC — ion-channel forced oscillation

Voltage-gated calcium and sodium channels mark time for living systems. Pulsed/modulated signals can force-oscillate those gates off-tempo: mistimed Ca²⁺ spikes rev mitochondria and membrane enzymes (NOX/NOS), flooding reactive-oxygen species (ROS). ROS is the universal amplifier: where oxidative stress underlies disease — endothelial plaques, DNA damage, neuro-inflammation, immune mis-fires — extra ROS accelerates it. That’s why the strongest signal in the literature is exactly what you’d expect: oxidative stress at non-thermal intensities.

Preponderance of the evidence

• OS
  Large majorities of RF studies report oxidative effects at non-thermal levels (classic syntheses: 93/100; updated meta-signals ~124/131 ≈95%).
• Animals
  WHO-commissioned reviews show highest certainty for heart schwannomas and moderate for gliomas.
• Fertility
  Male fertility reviews report adverse signals; corrigenda address data handling but not the pattern.

Schumann cavity & the cellular Goldilocks zone

We live inside the Earth-ionosphere waveguide — the Schumann cavity — whose natural, low-noise rhythms set the background for delicate bioelectric timing. Think of it as a cellular Goldilocks zone: quiet enough for coherent signaling. Non-native, man-made RF swells that background — a techno-biofilm that clogs the channel. Clean ether is as foundational as clean air.

Entropic waste: one language, many sources

Whether a hit is injected, swallowed (acetaminophen drawing down glutathione; AM404 touching sodium channels), or absorbed (microwaves elevating ROS), the common language is bioelectric disruption. Most of those hits are temporary. EMFs are the only 24/7 background exposure now touching nearly everyone, everywhere. That’s why policy must move first.

What QuantaCase teaches in your hand

• A
  Orientation, not slogans: shield between you and the phone during calls/carry.
• B
  No antenna sabotage: avoid magnet plates/loops and thick, card-stacked builds that force power up.
• C
  Continuity at the ear: no big aperture where you need reduction most.
• D
  Verification: ohmmeter continuity points prove a real shield path.

The roadmap: the Clean Ether Act

America once decided to clean the air. We can clean the ether — the electromagnetic environment children grow up in — with three focused steps:

1. 1
   Repeal §704 so communities can consider health when siting antennas.
2. 2
   Enforce PL 90-602: restart and publish HHS’s electronic-product radiation research and information program.
3. 3
   Mandate Li-Fi indoors: move high-bandwidth payloads to light; wire first; RF as needed.

Do this today

• ✓
  Train the habits: open the SAR tools, generate a GIF (Cellular-Only ↔ Simultaneous), and share the image that explains your choices.
• ✓
  Contact officials: copy our letter in the Policy Action center and send it to your representatives, school board, and HHS.
• ✓
  Upgrade indoors: prefer wired + optical; pilot Li-Fi in classrooms and kid-bedrooms.

About the author

John Coates founded RF SAFE in 1998 to protect families — especially children — from preventable wireless harms. He pioneered Airtube headsets and early maternity shields, appeared in national press, and removed products when new network behavior made them counter-productive. QuantaCase is his latest first-principles design: a teaching tool that helps families today while we fix the rules for tomorrow.