the iPhone and the significance of 101.4

No thoughts, other than that's totally awesome!

Seriously, though. I got nothin'...

That is freaky! I put my phone next to my Bose Wave Radio (has digital clock) all the time and I have never had that happen! Maybe I should try my iPhone out next to another clock radio in my house and see what happens!

I have a cheap under-the-cabinet clock radio in my kitchen. Every time I walk past it, the speaker emits a radio interference noise...WITH THE RADIO OFF!

Lot's of stuff under google for 101.4.

*runs to basement and gets aluminum hat*

Really? I just googled "101.4 iPhone" and got nothing of any relevance to this topic, at least on the first two pages.

Would love to see that video! Spooky...

I'll try it next to my digital bedside phone tonight. Can't wait to see what it does...

Oh my god, that happens to me, i thought it was just my alarm clock messing around, i never really considered that it's happened since getting my iphone and leaving it docked next to my alarm clock!

Cant remember what numbers show up but i will check tonight!

I'm guessing here but I think the significance of this is simply that some RF frequency emitted by the iPhone is swamping one of the circuits in the display portion of your clock radio. The fact that 101.4 comes up is very likely that some chip used in driving the display goes into a particular mode when swamped which leads to that on the display.

Swamping is when the RF energy from one device can overcome and freak out the circuits in another device.

The fact that another person has the same effect supports this concept. I'd bet that the display circuitry is identical in both clock radios.

Just a thought.

markdr wrote:
Any thoughts on this?

The first thought that comes to mind is now you know why the FAA bans the use of cell phones aboard aircraft in flight.

Yes, GSM phones will cause interference to electronic devices that are not properly shielded. More so than CDMA phones, for reasons that are very technical and not particularly important.

Ya there have been MANY discussions on cell phones and wi-fi in flight. As a former aircraft radio tech I can assure you that there is little chance of a cell-phone, even in the cockpit effecting the radio gear.

During repair of aircraft gear one of our tests was to subject it to various forms of high power RF to make sure there would be no issues. For example comm gear. We would tune it to various frequencies, attach the output to a signal analyzer then hit it with a radar blast and see what happened. We were allowed a certain amount of interference but at no time could the signal be lost.

The reason for this was the much comm/nav gear resides in the nose on corporate A/C and most of these aircraft have weather radar. If your nav/comm died whenever your Wx radar tried to paint you'd be in big trouble.

Our shop carried it further. We used cell-phones when they first came out, radar guns, hand held amateur radios. All in the 1-10 watt range to insure our repaired radios didn't freak.

One of the real reasons for not allowing cell while in flight is the fact that you are now basically a 40,000 foot antenna. Your cell phone would light up towers across 3 states or more! Imagine if everyone did that!?

Then there is the liability. If you were using your cell and the A/C crashed and it appeared to be a navigational error... Imagine the heyday the lawyers would have!

MarkRHolbrook wrote:
One of the real reasons for not allowing cell while in flight is the fact that you are now basically a 40,000 foot antenna. Your cell phone would light up towers across 3 states or more! Imagine if everyone did that!?

True; this is why the FCC banned cell phones in flight a couple of years before the FAA did.

I have seen demos where pilots will show that a cell phone can mess up the audio if held within inches of a headset, and a computerized cockpit display under the same conditions. Once the phone is moved more that 6 inches away the problem disappears. But it is real. Using a cell phone in a cabin is clearly not going to cause this problem, however.

Mark,
The problem is NOT interference with the radios; it is the interference with the digital flight and navigation controls.