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On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:10:50 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> What does surprise me is that in a moving aircraft, the GPS receiver in
>> my phone is useless.
>
> Not all of them are. My brother has a trace from his exercize watch that
> shows him flying across country.
Well, I didn't think all of them were, after all, the plane has one
itself. :-)
But that actually was what I wanted to try - I like playing with flight
simulators, and it's useful to be able to get speed and altitude
information from a GPS trace from an actual flight. :-)
>> I could as well, but then again, there are lots of wireless signals
>> flying around in open space, but I would expect something that's
>> designed to fly through the air to have some shielding against it.
>
> Especially that in which the general public will be flying. I'm not
> surprised there are industrial settings where following the rules is
> more important than in an airplane passenger compartment.
Same here, I think (the "not surprised" bit is confusing me, but that may
just be fatigue and the fact that I just got home from a 90 minute
community council meeting where the primary discussion most of the time
was "accessory dwelling units". Yeehaw.
Jim
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On Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:43:02 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> On 27/01/2011 11:44 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:06:53 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>
>>> That surprises me.
>>
>> It would depend on the tx strength of the signal, but it doesn't
>> surprise me.
>>
>>
> In the UK, you’re lucky if you can get reception in a park never mind a
> plane.
Well, here in Utah, that's true if you're with AT&T. With Verizon,
reception is pretty good everywhere I've been.
>> What does surprise me is that in a moving aircraft, the GPS receiver in
>> my phone is useless.
>>
>>
> Never tried. Any excuse to switch it off.
:-) As I mentioned to Darren, I like to try to get that kind of data
because it fits in with my hobby of flying in flight simulators. Knowing
speed/altitude data is useful when taking off (and landing) to try to get
it right.
>> I could as well, but then again, there are lots of wireless signals
>> flying around in open space, but I would expect something that's
>> designed to fly through the air to have some shielding against it.
>>
>>
> OK these were handhelds with power to reach the horizon.
The horizon is a long ways away. ;-)
Jim
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On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:11:30 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:31:03 -0800, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> There's probably nothing that prevents the cell signal from being
>>>> used, and if the plane is already doomed, turning on a cell phone
>>>> isn't likely to make things worse.
>>> The primary reason not to do this is that your phone will be in range
>>> of many more towers than you normally would be. For some cell systems,
>>> this is a Bad Thing, for performance, capacity, and possibly even for
>>> routing. It probably has nothing to do with the actual plane
>>> electronics.
>>
>> Well, I do recall that the Mythbusters tested this myth, and it rated
>> "plausible" with relation to the electronics. Still, I've been on
>> plenty of planes where people have not turned off their phones and they
>> all made it to their destination without incident...
>
> Um, yeah. That's waht I was saying. It's not a problem for the airplane.
> It's a problem for the phone carriers.
Well, no, shielding against those signals is a problem for the designers
and builders of the airplane. They found that there were circumstances
where cell phone transmissions did affect the instruments in the plane.
I was quite surprised by that finding, but then again, it seems when the
myths have something to do with breaking the law (and the FARs are law),
then the findings tend to support not breaking the law.
Jim
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>> And even today, WiFi is OK on many flights (as there are in-flight
>> WiFi services now on some flights).
>
> Funny how much less dangerous it is when they can charge you money for
> it, isn't it?
Next up: Why is it prohibited to use your phone while filling your car
with fuel?
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> Engineers spend decades designing an LCD with a wide viewing angle, and
> then a company sells you a device to narrow the viewing angle again. :-D
> How absurd.
Well it's not like the privacy filter is installed to all LCDs
permanently, there are still many LCD applications where you
specifically want a good wide viewing angle. That's why a privacy
filter is removable or electronically switchable.
A similar story with the anti reflective and anti-glare coatings that
engineers spent a long time developing and perfecting. Notice how you
can still mostly watch an LCD TV even if you have a bright window
directly in reflection - that would be almost impossible with CRT.
However someone decided to then market a "glossy" LCD (which is actually
simpler and cheaper to make) and many people prefer it.
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On 28/01/2011 9:23 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> And even today, WiFi is OK on many flights (as there are in-flight
>>> WiFi services now on some flights).
>>
>> Funny how much less dangerous it is when they can charge you money for
>> it, isn't it?
>
> Next up: Why is it prohibited to use your phone while filling your car
> with fuel?
'Cos as a bloke its very unlikely you can do two things at once. ;-)
--
Regards
Stephen
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>> Next up: Why is it prohibited to use your phone while filling your car
>> with fuel?
>
> 'Cos as a bloke its very unlikely you can do two things at once. ;-)
It's true that I find it almost impossible to talk at the same time as
playing my keyboard.
It's also true that I'm one of the few people in Laura's Rock & Roll
class who can wave their arms at the same time as dancing with their
feet. Most of the girls can't do it. ;-)
Also... I can play Bach? QED.
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> There's probably nothing that prevents the cell signal from being used,
> and if the plane is already doomed, turning on a cell phone isn't likely
> to make things worse.
Probably thousands of people leave their phone on by mistake (or on
purpose) on flights daily, I've done it myself (by accident) at least
twice. It surely isn't much of a safety issue otherwise they would
rigorously check every single phone on board.
I imagine also below a certain height you can easily get a signal from
the ground based base stations, occasionally on a flight you hear
someone's phone beep as the plane is coming in to land.
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> Next up: Why is it prohibited to use your phone while filling your car
> with fuel?
To stop you wasting time when the next customer could be already handing
over their money.
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On 28/01/2011 11:41 AM, scott wrote:
>> Next up: Why is it prohibited to use your phone while filling your car
>> with fuel?
>
> To stop you wasting time when the next customer could be already handing
> over their money.
That sounds quite plausible.
So why do they insist you turn your engine off?
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