Slashdot Mirror
Why Your Clock Radio Is All Abuzz About iPhones
blackbearnh wrote in with a story that's not really about the iPhone, but if your office speakerphones beep like mine does, read on: "If you own an iPhone, you may have noticed that it has a distinct and very annoying effect on clock radios, computer speakers, car radios, and just about anything else with a speaker. The folks at O'Reilly Media aren't immune, so they set out to discover just what is it about iPhones that makes them such bad RF citizens. The iPhones aren't the only bad apples in the cell phone basket and there's not much you can do about the problem. We're really in an interesting time in that there has never been so many high-powered personal transmitters just wandering loose in the world."
whatever happend to the label on the bottom of everything, which states that:
"This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) the device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) the device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesirable operation."
obviously the folks that made my PC speakers obeyed those rules, so why is apple getting away with breaking condition 1?
Aircraft COM receivers are particularly sensitive to cellphone interference. If I forget and leave mine on when I fly, I get a very distinctive da-da-daaa da-da-daaa da-da-daaa every few minutes over the radio. From any cell phone.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Mod parent up. Cell phones have been doing this since my old Nokia to my new Blackjack II.
Yup and with some computers you hear static over the speakers before the cell phone rings.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I was going to chime in along those lines as well. This is hardly news. When the weather is ideal at departure and destination, I usually tell my pax they don't have to turn their phones off. When the weather is bad and I'm going to be shooting the ILS to minimums, the last thing I want to hear is seven or eight phones ticking in my headset from the initial approach fix to the DA.
Some phones seem to be worse than others and it sounds like the iPhone may validate the FAA's position on cell phones.