They also tried them on airliners and no mater what they did there was zero effect.

We got a guy at our feild who is an expert 3d pilot and also a multi tasker if I might add. He will fire up his plane, carry it out in one hand with a transmitter in his other hand and a cigerette in his mouth. He launches the plane into a hover and all kinds of other 3d manuevers and then gets a call on his phone so he reaches into his back pocket and answers it. Hes out there flyin all around, smoking and having an in depth conversation with some one over the phone. Some times multi taskers amaze me a little bit.


Also, We have a feild near by us that experiences some weird happenings. This was a feild that was right next to a college campus. They had guys fire up their planes then take off and start flying. Then they noticed they were starting to get an unusualy large number of crashes do to loss of radio signal. All their crashes happend right around the top of the hour and every hour. After extensive investigation it turned out that the school nearby the feild was using an illegal air frequency to reset every one of their clocks on campus on the hour every hour. They were using a channel in the 72 mhz range which happend to be the same as the modlers at the air feild near by which was causing all the crashes. I dont know whatever came about after that but some one was telling me that story second hand.

"In England, at an FAA contractor's factory, cell phones are forbiden anywhere within the walls of the plant."

Quite possibly for security reasons instead of interference. Cell phones have cameras and that can be a BIG compromise to security.

Bedford

Nope!

I have heard quite a lot about this, both on forums and also at clubs, mostly about the new spread spectrum radios.

I'm not quite sure how this could cause oopses with 2.4GHz. The receiver is the more sensitive part of the chain as a lot of any RF could overload the front end.

The frequencies used in the US are 850MHz, 1.9, 2.1GHz, so quite a long way from 2.4GHz. Inside the phone, there is a couple of oscillators running 18Mhz or so. Can't remember off the top of my head.

At the office in my lab I have a tester, it can establish calls to 850/900/1800/1900 GSM, CDMA, WCDMA etc. etc., most mobile protocols. Unfortunately I don't have a 2.4GHz radio so I can't test. However, if there's anyone in DFW area that is willing to lend me, I can do some testing!

No.. it's for inteference reasons. The circuit boards they build have some very sensitive components on them.

Someone round our neck of the woods has a rig that sends our brand new Citroen bonkers. The other day, we found the windows had wound down to the bottom and the doors were unlocked.
Now, the windows shouldn't work at all without the ignition on and there's no combination of key-presses on the fob that will cause it. It's a mystery (RF-related mind you).

Moon-bounce is a mildly amusing exercise for us amateur radio geeks. The conversation tends to be a bit one-sided though.

A little off topic, but I also do metal detecting and have a couple of pretty nice detectors . Several times I.ve been asked to find something for someone thats fallen of a plane or heli. Always worried about shooting someone down with it, so I only search when there is no flying going on.
I did aim both coils at my plane sitting on the ground turned on ,to see if it messed with it , no problems . 2.4g Spektrum . Haven't tried it onFM or other 2.4g .

We have one of these nuts at our field also. Flying,no neck strap, answers phone, and flies with one hand,transmitter on his hip. He hasn't lost one "YET"

Are there cell phone towers near by??

Steve

No problem to report, at our club people use the cells all the time, never a problem. I pick up mine while I have my telemaster in the air, no problems or whatsoever. At 1/4 scale meets you have dozens of people on the cell phones while 4 or 5 models are in the air, never a problem.

Gerry

I don't think your club or (clubs) are going to this no cell phones, for inteference reasons,its like was stated earlier, SAFETY issues. If your so important that you need to be on the phone while at the flight line,maybe you should, stay in your seat, with your planes on the ground and talk. It's not only inconsiderate of the guy next to you,but down right dangerous

Banning cell phones on the flight line for safety reasons (i.e. eliminate flying & talking at the same time) is one thing, but a ban on all cell phones at the club field would actually be bad for safety. In the event of a bad accident and severe injury, having a cell phone on hand to call for help is invaluable. I know of at least one case at one of my clubs where a cell phone call to ambulance/paramedics probably saved a life.

I agree and I think at the flight line may be what the OP was suggesting

911 its up ther some where

If there is a big problem in a movie theater I'm sure someone will use the switch to turn on there cell phone, same thing at the field. No way someone can ban something in your pocket or hauler. At this point in time I think anyone worried about a cell and problems with a plane is still living in the times of bow ties and high buckle shoes. If it's a club rule then there isn't anything to debate here, it will have to be hashed out at the club meeting and voted on. That's one of the reasons for the meetings and folks that go out to the field and discover a new sign banning something and wonder where that came from should maybe go to some meetings and hear what is going on. Better to be informed then surprised.

Cordless phones are another matter altogether though as they operating in the same frequency range, as do most WiFi systems.

You sure you can't do it with the fob. I have one car that if you press unlock twice and then hold it on the second push it will unlock and roll down all four windows. And another that with the same unlock combination (BMW) it will unlock, roll down the windows and open the sunroof. Try pressing unlock, unlock and hold on the second press.

Oh forgot, the first car is a Nissan

Perhaps you need to stop driving French automobiles and drive a real British car.
Never thought of having to ground your car... maybe that would work when you park it for the night.

I scared the crap out of a friend of mine a few years back. We had anchored our boats for the night and had them tied side by side so they swung as one big boat. After everyone retired for the night, I fired up my rig and tried working some DX. Folks always find it a novelty to work a marine mobile. Well it seems my RF was modulating the florescent tubes in his cabin and the SSB was resonating in his stereo. He woke up and the lights were flashing as some unintelligible voice was emanating from his radio (that was turned off I might add). Scared the carp out of him! We still laugh about that one!
73, N3WXQ

Real?
British?
Car??

'Haven't seen one of those in a while!! Anyway, this Citroen was made in Turkey, that well known car producing country.

The thing about this debate is that those who insist that there is no problem and want to yack away are reliant for safety upon the EMI resistance of transmitter designs; not only the quality of any particular design but its continued performance over time. All of us electronic engineers know that there are still some rotten designs out in the wild and I've seen professional equipment go mad in the presence of soldering irons and mobile phones.

Transmitting RF, at any power and at any frequency, in the vicinity of programmable electronics that have a safety critical function is just crass bad practice (IMPO).
73's
Carole Heard
G7HBV

CGr, back in the early 80's, I worked at the IBM plant in Poughkeepsie Ny on the biggest of the current and underdevelopment mainframe computers. The RFI/EMIengineers had a special building away from the main plant site. For the most part, all of the test equipment and power stuff was below ground level The computer room floor was just about ground level and everythingabove the floor level other than the computer being tested was non conductive material. 10" fiberglass I beams supported the plastic wall and roof. All lighting was show up from the floor. Their instrumentation was so sensitive that they could tell how many cylinders a car had going down the road a quarter mile away. They had to shut down testing at shift change time because of he extra road traffic. They tested for both emitted and received RFIand EMI. It was very broad band testing from ULF into the Gighrz range. There were numerous engineering changes due to correct the emissions given and interference received. Nope, they didn't do cell phone testing, they weren't really available then.They did cover everything from radar interference from planes flying overhead to the cars going down the street. Electric drills and skill saws were also used near the equipment for both radiated and power line interference.

One thing i found both from field experience and my development engineering experience is that it alway the strange, couldn't happen source that causes the problems. The rest are engineered out already.

As pointed out before though, being distracted by your phone, or some one else's when flying is more likely to cause a problem than actual interference.

We did have a first hand incidence of static at the field a couple weeks back. We were getting ready for the Fun Fly and the wind was really blowing, and didfor the Fun Fly also. We have three picnic tables outside our trailer and theyare protected from the field by a chain link fence.
As the wind was expected from the fenced sides, we used the side covers from a temporary garage setup draped over the fence as a wind break for the table area. We were wrestling thethe first piece in place with the wind hitting about 20mph. and all of a sudden both the President and myself got almost knocked on our butts with the static charge thatbuilt up on the vinyl No one was flying, but I'll bet that spark would have caused some servo jitters. It sure jitter-ed us.

Don

Hi Don.

As an FAA Contract Engineer, I worked at Raytheon in England and Andover, MA and Met Labs in Baltimore doing EMI/EMC tests on FAA RADAR systems as well as other equipment used by the FAA that involved testing RADAR systems. They had several chambers for EMI/EMC testing and some pressure booths for Environmental tests, shake-and-bake sort of tests.

Those chambers (some were as large as a house) were indeed sensitive as well as well "insulated". They consisted of a Faraday cage and the walls were covered with anechoic cones. The floors were carbon composite material. So, I understand what you were involved with at IBM.

Our cell phones just plain did not work as soon as we entered the chamber. I found out about turning off my cell phone when I just forgot to turn it off when in Andover, MA. I was traced by the "cell phone police", who tracked me down and asked me to either turn it off or turn it in... I turned it off and apologized.

Ever been under a hovering helicopter (full scale)? That downdraft is unbelieveable. I was working in California (during my active duty days). We were recovering electronic equipment from a buoy that had broken loose from it's mooring and grounded itself on the rocks during a severe spring storm. Well, the helicopter, HH52 #1408, was hovering over the buoy and was going to remove a rack of equipment via hoist. I knew better, but I reached up for the hoist cable and was knocked on my butt by the static charge. I have a picture at home that I might upload later on today.

And I wholeheartedly agree with you about the distraction issue being a major factor. I had my cell phone in my pocket one day when I was flying. I was focused on the plane and the darned cell phone rang and rang and rang.. I was distracted by the ringing but did not answer it.. how could I!!! I only have two hands and they were both pretty much involved in what I was doing. After I landed, I took the phone, shut it off, and put it in my car.

For the doubters out there, just consider the state laws that have banned the use of cell phones while driving. I'm sure you all have seen someone trying to drive and talk on the cell phone. How many times have you been driving, minding your own business, and had someone run up on your butt... talking on the cell phone with total disregard for what was going on around him/her? Many states are even beginning to ban hands-off devices as they too are a serious distraction. I won't even get into texting while driving!!!!


CGr.

All electronic equipment that are porly designed/made might emit noise that affect other electronic equipment. If it's a radio, telephone, power supply or computer doesent matter. If the designer have done a propper job in design and testing, electronic equipment should neiter cause interference or be affected by interference. There are several inustrial standards about how to test and what levels of interference that are allowed.

A story I read about the ban of cell phones as gas stations was from the time CB radio was introduced. The CB radio knocked out the remote counter and by pressing send at the appropriate moment the counter was reset. Easy cheep fuel. </p>

Sun spots are more likely to interfere with your radio than a cell phone! There are lots of better things to worry about. LOL
Good flying!
Mike