Mobile phone when airborne
My understanding is that it's not illegal
Cellphone antennae are designed with a very low angle of radiation to reduce power and minimise their use at altitude, where in theory they are not needed.
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Simply remove the SIM card from the phone and the irritating chatter and any potential avionics GSM interference will disappear. The GPS will still work and the battery will last a bloody sight longer while not constantly searching for mast signals.
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Simply remove the SIM card from the phone and the irritating chatter and any potential avionics GSM interference will disappear. The GPS will still work and the battery will last a bloody sight longer while not constantly searching for mast signals.
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I think you will find that the Mobile Telephone Company's Ofcom Licence to operate prohibits aeronautical operation in which case you would be in breach of the licensing conditions! This was true of early Cellphone Operator Licences; I am not sure if it still is.
Cellphone antennae are designed with a very low angle of radiation to reduce power and minimise their use at altitude, where in theory they are not needed
So then the various commercial airborne picocell solutions are illegal?Cellphone antennae are designed with a very low angle of radiation to reduce power and minimise their use at altitude, where in theory they are not needed
Handset antennas are, these days, designed to be as compact as possible largely at the expense of radiation pattern, their performance artificially enhanced by transmitting more power, both at the handset and at the tower. The old pointy out antennas went out of fashion ten years ago for aesthetic reasons only, definitely not performance.
The problem of cellphone disruption in the air is largely due to (a) interference to the handset from multiple cells on the same frequencies by dint of height and (b) interference from the handset to multiple cells. The cells are, after all, designed with the assumption of terrestrial coverage in mind.
That's why when you used to go up 1 Canada Square in Canary Wharf beyond about the 20th floor, your cellphone wouldn't work. Only when they put in picocells on each floor could you make and receive calls. As the cells were now very small, the phones themselves put out much less power, perhaps 1000 times less, and so therefore don't disrupt the main terrestrial cell infrastructure.
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I am not sure who that is aimed at, but I don't think anyone suggested that the airborne picocells were piggy backing off the terrestrial cell structure.
Just sayin'!
Just sayin'!
