I know this has been brought up before, But I have had a experience last week I wanted to bring to everyones attention. As I rotated my Roo (Approx. 100th Flight) my Cell phone took an incoming call. As I felt the phone ring the first time, my rudders went full over. The plane then was OK until the second ring, the plane yawed again, I reached down and threw the phone on the ground and my spotter took it away, and did not have the problem again. I never wear the cell phone on my belt, but I forgot this time and had it on. When I am in the cockpit of the corporate jet, we always make sure our phones are off because they bleed over onto the headsets and radios when they are looking for a cell. I even passed a operating cell phone in front of a Operating EFIS tube and it flickered and went out for a second. Is there a connection?, I do not know, but I will not take that chance again.

Ron

Hi G4, is your receiver PCM ?

Rgds, Enrique.

I've had the same experience. Try this: Turn on you receiver, place your cell within one meter and call it. It swamps everything around it. Mine will you can hear a call coming in though my clock radio speakers when the radio is turned off...

Yup, my laptop has a cell card in it for wireless internet access. My webcam for the laptop when broadcasting image is fuzzy with lines through it, clear indication, also, my speakers in the house, it's moving enough noise to move my home theater speakers very very audible level.

Good Thinking on getting it off your belt and away!

Sean

Yes, my reciever is PCM. I have never had a glitch in all my turbine flights. the Radio is a Futaba 8 channel

I had some strange effects the last couple of times I flew. I switched models on my 10X, and then noticed that the ailerons were not at neutral (both had floated up) and would move very slowly. All other surfaces were normal. Switching the Tx and Rx off and on a few times cured the 'problem'. I had my new Nokia GSM cell phone lying on the table next to the plane.

After range checking ok I flew with no problems.

The following day I went to fly a different model and the same thing happened, with my phone in my pocket. After repeating the 'slow servo' problem a few times, I realised that I had the phone only a couple of feet away from the Tx, so I moved it away and the 'problem' went away. I tried to recreate the problem, but couldn't. Only common thread so far was the Tx and the cell phone theory.

Unfortunately I lost the plane (80" scale gas powered Katana) on a subsequent flight due to engine failure/ spin/ crash. I sent all the radio gear into Horizon, and asked them to check out for crash damage and the Tx for the above problem (not mentioning the cell phone theory). No fault was found.

I'm definitely keeping the cell phone away from my planes from now on. Don't know if the new GSM phones are worse than the old ones.

Paul

It is possible that your CELL PHONE can transmit sideband noise that can corrupt data into your transmitter. Then your radio will transmit the corrupt data Like an repeater to the plane.

I have had my cell phone go off in my pocket many times while flying with no adverse problems. It DOES make my puter go fuzzy when it rings so something is going on here.
V..

Unknow, Are you saying that the cell phone could corrupt data inside the TX and then it´s RF module send crap to the receiver? Until now I always thought that a futaba PCM receiver could
"lock" when it found external interference or if the TX stops to work properly.

Ron, We also had here a incident when a cell phone ringed in the pocket of pilot... the plane shaked and rolled, but after that , the pilot didn´t stop flying while he talked in the phone...it was
a small fast plane with a PPM receiver. We tried to repeat this later, calling at this phone several times but we didn´t had the glitch again.

Rgds, Enrique






Regards, Enrique

Because of Cell phone (TRUNKING CIRCUIT) when making or receiving calls its jumps from channel to channel before locking to the next available cell site. One of those frequency can cause interference. The transmitter can interpret that interference for control commands.

After looking into this I think cell phone should not be allowed on the flight line. ???

While I agree that this can happen, we've done a lot of cell phone talking on the flight line down here, and I have yet to see it be a problem in thousands of flights. Could it be a particular cell service, or make of phone?

Did you have a guess on what distance would be safe to put the cell phones away from the Tx´s?

Rgds, Enrique

I have to agree with Sean, I fly all the time with my cell phone and have received incoming calls during my flights. At times my spotter has answered the call for me. Ya know when the "Boss" calls.

But over the past years, I've been with Verizon, Nextel, T-Mobil and Cingular either through work or personal accounts without any problems at the flying field.

Can you post the service and phone you are using.

JR Gautreaux

That is sooo wierd!!! I used to have Nextel and while driving, I could always tell when I was about to get a call. I would hear this crazy static thru the speakers for my radio first, then 1 second later, the phone rings!!! Luckily, I haven't experienced any problems while flying, but I also don't recall if i've ever actually received a call while in the air or starting up on the ground. Needless to say, I won't take any chances and I strongly recommend everyone else do the same. Yes, it'll hurt to loose a model, but it can be replaced. It's the safety issue i'm most concerned with, property damage, injuries or worse, etc...
Personally, as with driving in many states, I think cell phones should be banned from flying fields as well. I'm sure many of you will chime in on this one.

Richie

I have nextell and when its parked near my puter i can tell when a call is coming in because it distorts the moniter and bit and causes some static. Never had any trouble at the flying field and have had it ring while flying. I am running JR pcm equipment.
V..

I have talked on my phone several times while flying some of my beater planes with not a twitch. I always have my phone on my side and have never had an issue with it. I have heard of troubles like what is being talked about but never seen it at my club. Good luck. [8D]

It's more of a case of the phone blocking the TX signal then sending it's own. You cell phone can basically drown you TX signal if it is too close. It's not actually affecting the plane it's just canceling out your TX signal. Any thing that transmits a signal can interfer with our radios if it's close enough. The cell phone also creates a fairly strong magnetic field when ringing thats what causes the speaker and monitor issues. Thats probably what affects the radio the most the magnetic field creates a shield and doesn't allow signal though,

OK, what about flying at a field with a cell tower close by. Some of you in the Central Valley may know what field I am talking about, it is out in the middle of some corn fields just north of 198 in Hanford. I have had SEVERAL weird experiences out there, random glitches, loss of signal, etc. The only thing I could come up with is that there is a cell tower not far from the field and a radio station. Any thoughts?

Nathan

Nathan, I just want to be sure I'm reading the above correctly. Random Glitches and loss of signal. Several, meaning enough to believe there is a problem not related to your radio setup and in different airplanes or different radios.

And you continue to fly there? I hope nothing you're not completely willing to lose [X(]

Our club has one of those freq scanners with the LCD screen, you know, the one that the AMA has and lends out. For years, there has been a signal that you can clearly see dead nuts between our channels 10 & 11. I was told that it is a pager tower a few miles away. If you sit and watch the display, it is normally a small signal, well outside of our band width. But every now and then (I am told this is when it starts paging), the signal gets real strong and bleeds over into the 10 KHz (I think its 10) that our channels are allotted. We have had issues on channels 10 & 11, so we don't use them.

Ya, I hear ya. I dont fly expensive stuff there, mostly park flyers and trainers.