Why Your Clock Radio Is All Abuzz About iPhones 397
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."
Nothing to see here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GSM Buzz (Score:4, Insightful)
Correct, lots of cell phones do this. If people are noticing it more with the iPhone, it's probably because people are more likely to want to hook the iPhone into audio equipment than with other cell phones.
Re:the cause could be put into the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, in other words, a 217Hz signal is amplitude modulated onto the GSM signal. Some electronic devices (like amplifiers) incidentally demodulate the 217 Hz and convert that to sound. 217Hz is well within the human audible range, thus... dutuh, dutuh, dutuh, dutuh, dutzzzzzzzz.....
(since it's a 217 hz square wave you get lots of harmonics as well)
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:All GSM phones do that! (Score:3, Insightful)
You insinuated that the USA is technologically inferior becase we've been living without the GSM buzz? Huh... :p
Verizon/Sprint/Alltell are the only big CDMA players left in the US afaik.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know how this ever made it to any news source. I'm trying to remember how long ago the first time I noticed it. It's been at least 10 years. My first phone that did it was an old Nextel.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:3, Insightful)
no, don't mod parent up, because he clearly didn't RTFA, which is quite informative and provides a lot of insight into this issue, actually:
so TFA isn't picking on the iPhone here, and in fact the article even defends the iPhone, putting the blame of this phenomenon on other devices:
TFA then goes on to explain that the reason we get these noises in so many electronic devices is because of "Part 15" of the FCC rules, which was put in place to produce cheap consumer electronics, with the trade-off being that consumers have to live with any interference that comes into their electronic devices.
lastly, it should be pointed out that advanced smartphones like the iPhone put out much more of this noise than a regular cellphone (which usually does this only when a call is received) because of the smartphone's regular high bandwidth data transfers. so that is part of the reason the issue is being brought up in conjunction with the iPhone.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep... I'm relying on the subtle noise, that my *berry makes on the computer-speakers as a mail-notifier... It is, actually kind-convenient — quiet enough not to wake-up the baby, but noticeable enough not to miss an e-mail.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. It is a well known phenomenon. I end up turning my blackberry off or leaving it in the kitchen on game/movie night because it makes all sorts of funny beeps on the surround system. I don't think people realize how powerful the transmitter in a cell phone is, and that it is not unique to iPhone.
Apple customers tend to be rather picky and vocal about any possible defect with Jobs' perfect little products.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:1, Insightful)
If cellphone signals could take down an airplane, dont you think the terrorists would have figured that out by now?
Re:It seems to be AT&T more than anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the AT&T cellsite is further away from your location than the T-Mobile cellsite. Hence, your phone has to "talk louder" for the AT&T cell to hear it.
No cellular provider would intentionally instruct your cellphone to emit more power than required, because it would be self-defeating. Excess transmit power just means unnecessary interference to nearby cells on the same frequency. The cellular protocols provide a means for controlling the power of a handset up and down as needed to get "just the right amount" of RF energy at the cell tower's receiver.
Re:really (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Psh (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry buddy, parent poster is needlessly blunt but essentially right.
There is nothing really wrong with them; they aren't really "crap". Its just that they aren't particularly special. Yet they are marketed (and usually priced) as if they were. The simple reality is that many other brands of speaker perform equally well at a considerably reduced price.
To put it into slashdot terms, Bose speakers are like Dell's line of gaming PCs. Nothing wrong with them per se; they are certainly functional enough, but they aren't particularly special, and nobody who is serious about gaming and knows hardware is going to be remotely impressed. Meanwhile, compared to a custom rig ordered at newegg or ncix etc the Dell gaming unit cost more and does less.
Like Bose.