Loafman
Beer Consumption Entity
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2002
- Posts
- 251
starchkr said:Cell phones and GPS do nothing as far as interference. They should be allowed on all flights. I always leave mine on in flight...all 4000 hrs or so...and have yet to see anything happen.
Phones were banned after phone companies could not bill people when making calls from above the surface... in short the phones picked up more than one antena at once which meant they could not tell where the phone was making the call from. Thence they didn't know whether to charge local charges, long distance charges or even roaming charges. So the phone ban was put in place after much force by the phone companies, it had nothng to do with the airlines and interference.
GPS, well there is no logical reason for banning that one. If it is going to interfere with any systems, it would not only be caused by secondary receivers in the rear, but also by the main receiver atop the a/c.
To answer your question, yes you may carry it in your carry on luggage. I always carry my electronics suite with me because i do not want those "security" people touching my stuff.
Every AT&T cellphone I've ever been around has interfered with every intercom / comm radio I've been using at the time. Made no difference what type comm system, but the common thread was whatever technology AT&T used. (TDMA?) Most CDMA phones simply don't work over about 1500' AGL. Their towers propagate the signal in a horizontal plane so that no energy is wasted sending signals off into space.
As for GPS interference, some handheld devices are not sheilded very well and the oscillators operate on a harmonic of VHF DME frequencies. I've seen this only a few times in my old Twin Commander with Collins microline equipment. I used to use my Garmin 295 in the ATR cockpit with the antenna in the unheated side window. In the CRJ 700, it's completely useless because it can't acquire a signal through the heated windows.