Derrick wrote: Wouldn't positively charged items/material in the room pull the negative ions away from the counter?? How do we counter act this or do we just accept it as a "real world" scenario?
I would imagine charged items or structures would attract or repel the generated ions, as we'd probably expect. But distance would have a lot of impact on the degree of attraction or repulsion. Two itty-bitty fridge magnets placed 15 ft away from each other don't attract one another significantly; then again, they have a lot more mass than the ions we're discussing, too. I think one might have to consider that any air currents from windows, door jams, vents, etc, could play a role, as well. I'm sure there's other things we're forgetting, too, like static charges on metal window sills, clothes and carpet, for example, which could neutralize some ions produced by a generator.
Whatever the case, I think the best one could hope for would be to accept a "real world" scenario, as you put it, Derrick. I think trying to counteract something would require a very high degree of information about a room and a very good working knowledge of all the things that might confound the results. Investigators rarely have either of these working in their favor.
The best data available on the usual behavior of ion generators in rooms might have to be reliant on personal experience alone. I don't mean paranormal experiences, either: Data collected from ion meters exposed to ion generators in many different rooms in many different configurations over many trials might be all one could hope for. Confounders would have to be dealt with as they are realized.
