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How to Avoid Mobile Phone Interference w/ Speakers
EnzoTen asks: "Everyone has been sitting at their desk rockin, jamming, or groovin to their favorite tunes. You are in a trance, getting work done... then... BZZZPT... BZZTP..BTT.. BZZZZZZZZPTT... the blood curdling noise of your cell phone interferes with your desktop speakers playing 4 times the volume of your music and it takes everything in you not to flip your desk upside down, or throw your mobile phone across the room. Is there anyway to avoid mobile phones interfering with speakers? Are there speakers available that are shielded from this type of interference?"
Just wrap your cellphone in several layers of tinfoil. Problem solved.
To really solve the problem once and for all, poke out your eardrums!
Symptom: When you use X, Y doesn't work properly.
Cause: Due to a design deficiency in X, Y sucks when used in conjunction with X.
Solutions:
- Don't use X
- Don't use Y
- Render yourself unable to notice the problem
Keywords: omg bzzt bzzzzzWhat the hell is my phone transmitting when i'm not receiving a call?
It's periodically sending your GPS location to the government who's building a huge database of people's movements, to correlate against all sorts of crimes ranging from terrorist attacks and murders to petty theft and jaywalking.
The RIAA has shown interest in this as well. They want access to the data so they can draw up a list of people who walked by a record store without stepping inside and buying a CD. They claim it's not only in their own interest, but for national security as well, since anyone found guilty of such a crime is a threat to the national economy, and therefore a terrorist. But don't worry, the government is protecting you and is fiercely negotiating with the RIAA on your behalf. They finally realised what a bunch of nutcases these RIAA folk really are, they're sick of being pushed around by some corporate lobbyists, and are now actively pushing for a rewrite of that RIAA bill that would change the wording from "terrorism" to a mere "theft". And it looks like they might even have a chance of winning this one...
OK, and now for the serious answer: a cellphone tower can only support a limited number of simultaneously connected cellphones. It therefore needs to know exactly when a cellphone leaves its range, or disconnects from the network altogether, so it can free up its connection slot for use by another cellphone. Normally a phone communicates a disconnect to the tower whenever possible (for example if it's getting out of reach and connects to another tower, it then disconnects from the first and the connection gets transferred gracefully from the old tower to the new one, even in the middle of a conversation). However, if you just yank out the batteries, the phone gets utterly destroyed, you suddenly enter a cage of faraday or even an underground tunnel, ... the phone will have no time to notify the tower, so the tower needs to check up on supposedly connected phones from time to time to check that none of them are MIA. It's basically similar to an ICMP ping on the Internet. And that's what you hear over your speakers. Similar thing happens right before a call or SMS comes in, or when you dial out: there's two-way communication, and the RF interference the cellphone puts out is picked up by your audio equipment.
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
This never happened to me back in the US but here in Iraq it happens all the time. I thought it was just the frequencies they use here. As far as I see it there are five solutions to this problem:
1) Keep your phone away from your speakers
2) Buy better shielded speakers
3) Enclose your speakers in a faraday cage and ground the cage
4) Enclose your phone in a faraday cage (note this may make it difficult to dial, oh yeah and it will negatively affect your signal quality too)
5) Get a new phone
Personnally, as stated above, I find it rather conveniant to get an early warning when I'm going to get a call. Besides, if you think of it as sounding like music they'd play at a rave it's not so bad. Bip bada-bip bada-bip bada-bip. Sounds kinda like techno.
War(n) - Gods way of teaching Americans geography.