Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/10/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> > > Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 10:13:11 -0600 > From: John Collier <jbcollier@powersurfr.com> > Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: New aviation rules > Message-ID: <B7E1E6B7.15640%jbcollier@powersurfr.com> > References: > > My boss is an aviation nut and subscribes to various industry rags. It was > discussed in "Pilot" magazine under the regular section they have on FAA > incident reports. > > What I wanted to write was: > > "My sources are ironclad. A friend of a friend met someone once who knew > someone that was on the very plane that had problems!" > > :-) The Wall Street Journal did a front page piece on this issue last year basically debunking the myth. The airlines make a nice profit on their overpriced airphones, so they have an inventive for banning cell phones. For a while, the excuse was that such use would cause havoc with the cell network by keying up more than one cell simultaneously. The cell phone companies were quoted in the Journal piece as saying it really wasn't a problem. Consider this: airplane navigation systems are capable of flying through near fields of UHF television broadcast transmitters, which run up to 5 million watts. They are capable of operating near powerful military radar systems emitting megawatts of RF. If my cell phone emitting 1/3 watt of 800Mhz RF is going to cause a problem, then something is seriously wrong with the aircraft's systems Just to keep this on topic, bear in mind that as photographers, we know that light falls off from its source according to the inverse square rule. Radio waves behave the same way. Left as an exercise for the reader: If I am seated 30 feet from the cockpit, how much of my 1/3 watt actually reaches the vicinity of the avionics bay? Rolfe Tessem NYC - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html