Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Not entirely true - for mobile phones, especially. The way that a mobile phone works is that, if it finds that it hasn't got a signal, it increases the power of its radio transmitter until it either finds one, or it hits maximum power. That's why, if you go to an area without mobile coverage, your phone will drain its battery in no time flat. Imagine a 747 with 500 mobile phones, all transmitting at maximum power to find a network signal. That truly could cause havoc with the aircraft's electronic systems
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Maximum power for a cellular phone is about 1/2 watt (500 milliwatts). That is nothing, especially at 800MHz through 2GHz. Commercial aircraft wiring and electronic equipment is too well shielded to show any effect from even dozens of cellular phones transmitting at the same time. And since the commercial aircraft VHF band radios are so much lower in frequency at around 130Mhz, and their long range HF radios are even lower in frequency (usually below 10MHz), there is no chance that the high frequency, low powered cellular phones will cause communication errors.