Mobile phone ringing all night !
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Join Date: Jun 2006
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Mobile phone ringing all night !
Grrr !! I have just come in to AMS from KUL, and as we all settled down to sleep (23.10 departure) a phone started ringing somewhere in the cabin. At first I thougt it was my imagination, but no, it wasn't. As the cabin was in darkness, I got up to answer the call of nature, and advised the cabin crew. Tobe fair, the guy came and stood in the cabin, and sue enough next time it rang, he wandered around in the dark, trying to pinpoint the noise, but failed. He gave me some new earplugs (thanks !) and gave up his search, but always in the back of my conciousness was this ring bloody ring.
So, what SHOULD he have done ? Put the cabin lights on and carried out a proper search ? Woke everyone up and asked them to ceck their phones, as it was somewhere around row 3, port side, i.e. directly under the flight deck, with all that sensitive instrumentation.
As it was, I slept like a log, once I'd got the earplugs in, and didn't wake up til we were over Poland.
So, what SHOULD he have done ? Put the cabin lights on and carried out a proper search ? Woke everyone up and asked them to ceck their phones, as it was somewhere around row 3, port side, i.e. directly under the flight deck, with all that sensitive instrumentation.
As it was, I slept like a log, once I'd got the earplugs in, and didn't wake up til we were over Poland.
Join Date: Oct 1999
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That is bizzare 
The ringing phone could not have been an incoming call, as there would be no mobile phone signal at cruise altitude, and even if there was, whoever was calling would eventually give up.
More likely to have been an "alarm" that had been set, but I would have thought that after 3 or so automatic 'snooze' resets, the phone itself would have given up.
Most plausible explanation, however..............a kids toy phone!
The ringing phone could not have been an incoming call, as there would be no mobile phone signal at cruise altitude, and even if there was, whoever was calling would eventually give up.
More likely to have been an "alarm" that had been set, but I would have thought that after 3 or so automatic 'snooze' resets, the phone itself would have given up.
Most plausible explanation, however..............a kids toy phone!
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I have a smart phone which has my calendar synchronised.
Whilst the phone is in “flight mode” I often forget to silence the PDA part - the calendar will alert me to an appointment (sounds like an incoming text message) mid flight. Rather embarrassing - considering the looks of fellow passengers. I’ve not been told off yet!
I now make an effort to switch the damn thing completely off.
Smala01
Whilst the phone is in “flight mode” I often forget to silence the PDA part - the calendar will alert me to an appointment (sounds like an incoming text message) mid flight. Rather embarrassing - considering the looks of fellow passengers. I’ve not been told off yet!
I now make an effort to switch the damn thing completely off.
Smala01
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God I have had such incidents before too. I have a Nokia Communicator and it is ultimately two devices in one. If you switch the phone off, the communicator part is still on. So when my daily alarms go off... it's 'oh bugger, that's my communicator going off'.
Most embarrassing.
S.
Most embarrassing.
S.
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as there would be no mobile phone signal at cruise altitude,
Join Date: Oct 1999
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Not sure this is true. In big cities there are basestations peppered all over the place but in rural areas they are often far apart, so they need to have a long range. According to The Wikipedia "The longest distance the GSM specification supports in practical use is 35 kilometres (22 mi)." Vertical distance will be less because of the way the antennas are designed, but it could still be close to cruise altitude.
The maximum speed of travel in a mobile phone system is limited by several factors: frequency changes, rate of change of timing offset, etc. The speed of an airplane often exceeds these (typically phones are designed for use in a fast car) which means the phone will fail to register to the network and retry registration repeatedly
