Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/10/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Brian, As far as I know, modern cellphones would not interfere with navigation of a modern plane. The prohibition is motivated by three factors: 1) tradition/caution: maybe they could interfere, let us ban them just in case 2) profit: the in-flight satellite phones are very profitable for the airlines 3) considerations on the ground: because a plane moves so fast, there could be problems with the hand-off of the call from one cell to the next. It could result in two cells being "occupied" by one cellphone at the same time. If enough people did this, it could cause capacity problems on the cellular network. For this reason cellular operators support the ban. Nathan Brian Reid wrote: > I spent many years working for a company that designed, built, and sold > laptop computers. One of the most important qualities of a laptop is > battery life. If you can make your laptop last 10% longer than the > competition's, it will sell better. Consumer magazines rate laptops > according to how long they run on a charge. And the holy grail of laptop > computers is to be able to run LAX-JFK on one battery. > > If a laptop computer loses energy to electromagnetic radiation, that > energy is not available to power the computer. For this reason, the > companies that design laptops spend extraordinary amounts of time and > money testing and reducing the RF radiation from the computers, not > because some government agency makes them, not because it will be kinder > to airplanes, but because it will be more profitable. > > For this reason I am quite certain that laptop computers do not bother > navigation equipment. I have no knowledge of cell phones, but their > purpose is to transmit RF signals, so this economic argument would not > apply. > > Brian Reid > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html Brian Reid wrote: > For this reason I am quite certain that laptop computers do not bother > navigation equipment. I have no knowledge of cell phones, but their > purpose is to transmit RF signals, so this economic argument would not > apply. - -- Nathan Wajsman Herrliberg (ZH), Switzerland e-mail: wajsman@webshuttle.ch Photo-A-Week: http://www.wajsman.com/ General photo site: http://belgiangator.tripod.com/ Belgium photo site: http://members.xoom.com/wajsman/ - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html