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SETI Disrupted By Cell Phones in Airplanes?
Iphtashu Fitz writes "If, as recently mentioned, the FCC does allow wireless access on airplanes, could it effectively mean the end of the search for ET? NewScientist has a new article that explains how radio interference from airborne cellphones could drown out faint radio signals from space. Among other concerns astronomers have is that the second harmonic of many cell phones falls in a frequency band that reveals the molecular signature of newborn and dying stars, which is among the 2% of frequencies in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum reserved for use by radio astronomers. Michael Davis, director of projects at California's SETI Institute, stated that a single cellphone on an airplane 100 miles from a radiotelescope could exceed recommended radio noise levels by 10 times. A potential solution that astronomers have suggested is to install a miniture cell transceiver on each airplane, called a picocell, that would act as a relay using a frequency that wouldn't interfere with their work."
Shoot, this is one more reason not to have cell phones on airplanes during flight. I worry about the public's lack of concern for science especially given the extreme right wing movements going on right now in the USA, but people do not want to be remotely inconvenienced even if it means screwing science. Perhaps if the appeal can be made to them from a personal sanity perspective. I got a brief taste of how bad cell phones on planes can be last month on a flight that I wrote about it here.
Perhaps if this has to happen the picocell solution might be the way to go, but please let there be phone free zones on aircraft.
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Nothing against the organization, but did they really think they can reserve the entire sky for their software?
You want to install what in an aircraft?
As a government licensed aircraft mechanic I could tell you that is completely infeasible because there are simply too many airplanes in the sky to see that it is installed and the govenmental approvals to install such a device (unless the airplane is experimental everything installed in an airplane has to be FAA approved) along with the costs would see that this never happens.
My question is that isn't this already happening when people forget to turn off their cell phones and it sits in standy searching for a network?
Isn't most of SETI based on handling a lot of old archived telescope data? This will affect the program in the long run, but how long will it be before this becomes a problem? Of course, it would be much better to fix the problem before it starts, rather than try to retrofit every plane out there...
It should be pointed out that the problem is bigger than just SETI not being able to hear the aliens. most of the deep-sky viewing done form earth is done using radio telescopes. the problem with cell-phones on planes is that it potentially throws a ton of interfering signal data into the telescope's FOV. nevermind that nobody needs to be talking on their cell-phone while flying, I'd rather the telescopes keep working (there's way too much space up there for us to be the only intelligent thing in it).
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A typical aircraft already has a high-powered weather radar dish, several VHF transmitters for voice communications (with air traffic control, etc), a transmitter to talk with the airlines' own ground control, and usually an AirPhone transmitter (for all those $5/min phones in every seat back). With all that RF noise going on, what's a few more very-low-power UHF cell phones??
That's just it. It's RF noise. Cell phones create modulated RF signals with harmonics on frequencies that radiotelescopes need to be listening on. Imagine trying to hear someone playing a flute from 30 miles away. Now imagine you're trying to hear that flute, standing 50 yards from a raging waterfall. That's like what radio telescopes do right now; it's tricky, but picking signals out of full-spectrum RF noise is what they are designed to do.
NOW imagine trying to hear that distant flute while standing 50 yards from a raging waterfall, and a band starts playing Sousa marches right in your ear. Even if the sound of the distant flute is still reaching you, you'll never ever be able to pick out its waveform from the sound of the band AND the white noise of the waterfall. Especially during the picolo solo.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
This is a good Idea that would also work in restaurants.
Have seating like it used to be with smoking or nonsmoking. The no-smoking symbol in the overhead could be replaced with a cell phone icon, and cell use could be allowed only in some rows.
You don't want to sit with people gabbing on a phone through most of the flight, there could be seating accommodations. It used to be a regular part of air travel to be offered seating preference.
The FCC said that SETI could use this frequency. They did this before cell phones were invented. This RF pollution scenario is EXACTLY like the problems with BPL. BPL kills amatuer radio, cell phones in planes kill radio astronomy.
If the FCC was doing it's job, it wouldn't be a problem. However, I'm betting the FCC will look the other way since the cell phone industry has more money than radio astronomers...
Unfortunately, the FCC is probably too tied up working with the MPAA on how to revive the broadcast flag. Things like unwanted RF interference (unless it impacts the big industry players) is probably low on their list of priorities.
Aircraft move very rapidly across a radio telescope's field of view, while stars are nearly stationary. This kind of noise is yet another argument for phased arrays of radio telescopes, networked together. Their parallax should be more than sufficient to distinguish Earth noise from stellar signals. Once in phased arrays, all the other benefits, from resolution to increased coverage, will arrive. Overcoming the inevitable aerial radio noise might just be the excuse we need to get to a more useable radio telescopy.
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