Cheap Cell-Phone Detector

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:58PM from the and-tim-gets-10%-for-fairness dept.

An anonymous reader contributes a link to a BBC News article on a cheap cell-phone detector created by six New Zealand high-school students for a business competition, excerpting "The detector, which they have called CellTrac-r, works by picking up the bursts of radio frequency activity that emit from a mobile each time it sends or receives a call or a text message. The device can detect these bursts of electro-magnetic energy up to a radius of 30 metres. It can also measure the amount of the energy to determine the distance of the mobile.", and noting "Seems like a perfect /.er hack project, and as initiator I get 5% of gross profits."

8 of 296 comments (clear)

Cheap Cell Phone detector? by Flerg · 2004-07-20 20:00 · Score: 5, Funny

Why would you want to detect cheap cell phones?
Re:Neat, Now if only by sr180 · 2004-07-20 20:01 · Score: 4, Funny

Great, so they look at their phone to work out why it dropped out right as they swerve their vehicle into you..

--
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
Finally! by WegianWarrior · 2004-07-20 20:05 · Score: 5, Funny

...a great way to find my cellphone those times when I put it on silent ringing and then forgets where I put it down :) (don't laught - it happens more often than I like to admidt). Now, if they could also find a way to indicate not just how far away the mobile phone is, but also in what direction... shouldn't be hard - either a directionloop, or two antennas 90 degress apart.

--
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Got it already by darnok · 2004-07-20 20:05 · Score: 3, Funny

So this thing can detect a mobile phone only when it sends or receives a call or text message? I'm not that smart, but I figure that would tend to coincide with either the phone making a ringing or beeping noise, or someone talking into it.

Hmm, how could I possibly detect this using attachments I've had on my head since birth ...?
Its easy by FraggedSquid · 2004-07-20 20:12 · Score: 5, Funny

Just listen for somebody shouting "I'M ON THE TRAIN!". As if we didn't know already.

--
You don't need a lab to make mud.
Ears by tiredwired · 2004-07-20 21:01 · Score: 4, Funny

Ears are so cheap I got two of them. I can detect cell phones quite well.
Re:Detect this by Alranor · 2004-07-20 21:04 · Score: 5, Funny

Last I checked this was still the "land of the free".

Just out of curiousity, how many years has it been since you checked that?
Isn't that why the phone rings? by TheOtherAgentM · 2004-07-20 21:11 · Score: 3, Funny

That way you know where the phone is when you get messages or calls. It's always funny to me when the phone rings and someone yells, "Phone!" That's why it rings in the first place.