Can a cell phone cause a problem with radio?

Anything is possible, but by in large, no. Good Luck, Dave

Hi!
Years ago romuor said that...I personally have not heard or seen anyone being shot down by a cell phone ringing!

Probably not.
Cell phones operate on in variety of frequency ranges, none of which are on near or harmonically related to RC aircraft frequencies. Any radio can become detuned and transmit outside of it’s intended band (called spurious emissions) but this is very unlikely. Also the power is very, very low. Maximum power from a standard handset is around 0.6w and then turned down by the tower once a call is in place to the lowest level needed to support a call.
If your cell phone is Bluetooth enabled, it will also be on the 2.4ghz band which is shared by RC and many other devices. However, these power levels are even lower than a cell phone and are all but unusable past a few dozen feet.
Are you searching for the source of a glitch or just curious?
Conway
N3WXQ

Reason for asking is the flying field put up signs

Hi!
Why???
By the president of the club or ..???

Perhaps the club is worried about pilots texting while flying?
I can't see that the cell phone itself is a problem.

Nah, I've spoken on my cell about two feet away from a buddy of mine while he was flying. No problem.

There was a time before the 2.4g I heard of a high end computer transmitters being reset to default settings when a cell phone rang near by.

Technically, I don't see any problems with cell phones interfering with either the 72MHtz or 2.4GHtz equipment we use for RC. Socially, I simply get annoyed by people who constantly are yakking on their phones.

I was interviewing a candidate for a job a few years ago. His phone rang during the interview and he had the nerve to stop me, the interviewer, while he took a personal call. Never even excused himself from the conference room. Some minutes later when he ended his call, he asked, "Now, where were we?" I answered, "We were just concluding this interview." I then took my notebook and walked out of the room.

Several years ago, when I was trying to get admission into my engineering course, the university's computers crashed because too many people were speaking on the mobile phones and the system could not handle the inteference. As always and as with automobiles, model airplanes and cell phones should not be used together. I havent seen any hurt a model yet and radio wave inteference may not occur, but the high magnetic fields created may affect TX circuitry and there is always a first time. Dont switch off your mobiles at the field, they are for emergencies; use them as such. Model airplane engines are too noisy to use mobile phones in the pit anyway

By the way, it is a good idea to switch off your phone if you are about to get interviewed

Ameyam

This is one of the reasons that the FCC controls what frequencies are used for what applications. They do their best to prevent interference issues. I've never seen or heard of a cell phone interference problem but I suppose anything is possible.

as Dave said, anything is possible, on the wierd side of things, at work we carry company phones, real cheap things, but in our older trucks, 2003 and older, just a second or two before the phone would ring, we'd get interference on the trucks AM/FM radio. it was only from the carrier and the cheap phones, different carriers or better phones, then there was no inerference

I have Motorola RAZR V3 on the T-Mobile Network in the UK. This uses 1.8GHz.
When my phone was about to ring, my Compaq video monitor at work would go all squirrely.
I now have a Dell LCD monitor and there's nothing visible when my phone rings.
I can see that it's possible that the programming on some computer transmitters could be upset by a phone, or even that the pulse train to the RFstage could be corrupted but, as phone powers reduce and microprocessors get better at EMI resistance, this is a problem that will get less and less likely.
BUT, for the time being, the BMFA recommends that phones are not brought live into areas where transmitters are active.

???
Seems to me if this were the cause, every computer controlling a cell tower would crash constantly.
I think there was another reason.

Several years ago, there probably was no real engineering tests done on computer systems for interference from cell phone usage, especially when it involves high volume traffic.

I've heard PA systems, even today, have that peculiar sound that relates to cell phone communications with the base station, even when there are no calls coming in or out to that phone.

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

That does not mean that they interfere with our radio systems, but there is always a possibility of it happening with a combination of a radio that is not operating properly and a cell phone that is not operating properly. Anything is possible.

The best situation is to just not use the things on or around the flight line. I leave mine in my car while I am at the field. Besides possibly causing RF issues with the radio systems, it is just plain annoying.

CGr.

I haven't had any cell phone interference, but I did get some the other day while flying at my house. I was flying my Dazzler on channel 58 and it started rolling and throttled up on its own. About that time an 18 wheeler came up the hill in front of my house. Fortunately I was up high and got control back after he dropped over the next hill. I'm pretty sure his CB radio or linear amplifier was probably the culprit as I haven't had any more problems since.

CB's are notorious for poorly tuned radios, overmodulation and spurious emissions. Then they throw an illegal kw linear amp on top just so they can 10-4 all the way to the moon.

I always leave my cell phone in my truck when I am at the field. As a side note, I once read somewhere that you should never talk on your cell phone while pumping gas at the gas station. Could cause an explosion. Always wondered about that one.

theres always people talking and browsing the web at my club. no troubles yet

I think that at most clubs it has less to do with interference and more about pilots/spotters talking on the phone while on the flight line. It's more of a safety issue than causing problems with interference.

Ken

Not too many years ago this was brought up at an IMAA event to me, some guy was having a freak out on the flight line because someone in the other station answered his cell phone. I went right over to Jim Giffin the district 10 VP and asked what the AMA stand on cell phones was. The testing done by AMA showed no problems at all. AMA has no rules regulating them. Jim on the other hand didn't trust them?? So far the tests I have seen show no trouble at all but if a club says no phones then no phones it is. This would have to be voted on by the club members depending on the by laws. This is also one of the times you will see more of the older members voting to ban something new to them, just the nature of the beast. I wasn't thrilled about them when they started showing up at the field either. So far the next time I see a problem with them will be the first. I no longer worry about them at all.

Yes. And with car driving, too.

Hang up and fly.

I haven't seen or hear of any problem with cell phones giving RC planes any problems and I fly in Los Angeles area which has got everything going on at one time.

Yes. Mythbusters did a great show on this one. Okay so they are not exactly the last word in scientific process, but who else is gonna try to blow up a gas station? Seems the only way they could get the cell phone to cause an explosion was to help it out with a little nitro.
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode2