Radio-controlled cameras disrupt Beijing flights
 

Cameras disrupt Beijing flights
Flights were disrupted at Beijing's airport because of interference from radio-controlled cameras 14km (9 miles) away, a Chinese investigation says.
Three small cameras fitted on lifts at a building were responsible, China Daily newspaper said on the findings.
"The radio waves severely disturbed normal flight take-off and landings," said Su Qing of the Northern China Air Traffic Management Bureau.
The report did not say when the interference occurred.
Beijing's airport is being expanded ahead of next year's Summer Olympics.
"The radio was using the same frequency channel as the airport radar, therefore, largely dampening the performance," Mr Su told China Daily.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ic/6736661.stm

RFI from Cameras
 

This is pretty much the same around the world wireless devices including Cameras, Phones and Bugs plus a whole load of other items under fault conditions cause RFI that interferes with ATC RT channels it usually does warrant news coverage though. The report is not specific about the level of delay anybody know how big the issue was e.g. no.of flights affected and how much delay?

Cheapo stuff doesn't even need "fault conditions", it emits on totally illegal frequencies - and never mind the harmonics...

One may assume it was the airport radar RT that was affected, not the radar itself : radar aerials are too directive, so it would only have caused a narrow strobe on the screen.

I would be fairly amazed if a camera using RF transmission, however badly designed, had enough spurious emission/ harmonics to have this effect, Compared to the radar, they would be very low powered, and inside a metal cage (the lift) inside a concrete shaft inside a building. I do this sort of thing for a living, and all the lift cameras I have known are hard wired, and the cables run with the cabling powering and controlling the lift.

The other way round, Ground radars often interfere with legal, low powered RF transmissions within the building.

kms901,
I suspect the usual journalistic or translation confusion... the "lifts" were probably cranes on a building site.

As to ground radar interference with other (legal) systems, don't get me started.