Bluetooth on Planes?

Bit of an unfair comparison that. While the plane is near the strongest concentration of signals, it's on the ground at the gate, when they allow phone use on board anyway. Out on the runway it'll be well away from all that and the signal strength would be a lot lower than from a phone on board.
As has been mentioned it's quite likely that in-flight phone usage will soon be coming to an aircraft near you. That's not because of a revolutionary new technology, it's just they've stopped taking a ridiculous safety precaution :p
 
Not quite true - thanks to installing picocells onboard, most phones should transmit at relatively low power. Without the picocell the phone would ramp up to full transmit power to seek out a base station.

The difference in transmit power will, of course, still be marginal (and a lot higher than bluetooth).
 
My phone started ringing in my pocket at the local station and the pump wouldn't..er...pump. Some detection thingamajig?

Probably, mine rang after my instructor finished pumping and was in the shop paying. I'm learnin at the mo, test in 3 weeks
 
Tis what I though but I still got shouted at through loudspeaker:(

The petrol station one is because apparently they could *possibly* mess with the readings on the pumps and potentially get you cheap fuel...god forbid...
 
Static electricity causes petrol station fires, not mobiles phones. It is a pointless rule.
 
There's no real reason that phones are banned in petrol stations - loads of them actually have base stations built into the big masts with the price readouts. Both Braniac and Mythbusters have tried to make a phone ignite fuel, and both failed.

Mythbusters also tried mobiles on plane equipment. It did marginally affect readings on very old equipment, but they tried it in a reasonably modern jet with a huge amplifier on the mobile phones - a variety of phones varying in age, frequency - and got absolutely nothing.

I know a few people who've left their phone on for the whole flight by accident- my Dad being one. They're all still alive.

One major reason that phones should be off on planes is the ground stations. At a few thousand feet, your phone tries to lock on to more than one. They're also not designed to perform handovers at 500mph!
 
Of course mobiles are ok on planes. It's all a big pile of crap that they'll cause interference with the systems. Think of all the radio and wifi, mobile phone traffic going on around airports, they don't magically stop at a plane - they're designed to cater for interference and probably isolated or faraday caged in some way.

The longer they dont let them on aircraft the better, can you imagine how annoying it's going to be listening to everyone around you on a phone for 8 hours.

I've had interference problems in the early 00's from using a phone on an aircraft flight deck. Nothing for years now though.
 
The longer they dont let them on aircraft the better, can you imagine how annoying it's going to be listening to everyone around you on a phone for 8 hours.

I've had interference problems in the early 00's from using a phone on an aircraft flight deck. Nothing for years now though.

I doubt people could use they're own networks on the planes, probably rerouted somehow jacking up the price which will put people off using for a long period of time
 
There hasn't been a single recorded case of a mobile phone causing a petrol station to ignite as far as I'm aware, I think it was more to do with people not knowing what effect electromagnetic radiation has on things and they banned it as a precaution. I've been past petrol stations with a full mobile phone mast mounted just meters away from their roof so it can't be that much of a threat considering that's where the highest amount of radiation is. Static electricity when getting out of vehicles causing fires however has been proved.
 
I though all these bannings had absolutely nothing to do with the relatively harmless phones and everything to do with relatively selfish/useless users. No mobiles on aircraft shouldn't have anything to do with interference, I'd say it is just so you don't **** off the whole plane telling some idiot on the other end your life story.

As for the petrol station one, I'd assume it is so that you don't get some fool try to phone and use the pump and end up dropping the damn thing or getting into some sort of trouble. The less people use phones when they should be thinking of something else, or when other people are forced to be in earshot, the better.

No swearing
 
What about petrol stations?

Another myth. :)

What are these petrol stations you are talking about, i was led to believe earlier in the thread they are a myth and don't even exist ¬_¬:rolleyes::confused::confused::D


Find it irritating enough someone yelling loud enough to be heard on a phone for 30 seconds on a bus or a plane, hours of loud talking on phones would do my head in, keep them banned. Also say, if you're handling fuel, maybe you should be focused on that and that alone.

I would also not take anything brainaic/mythbusters or any other crap show as proven or fact, ever.

PS - Brainiac tried the mobile phone at a garage thing. They put several phones inside a petrol-soaked caravan. Nothing happened - until of course instinct took over and they detonated the caravan anyway. :D

See phones should be banned, people are more prone to setting fire to anything containing a mobile phone, that includes people with phones in their pockets, you were warned.
 
Bit of an unfair comparison that. While the plane is near the strongest concentration of signals, it's on the ground at the gate, when they allow phone use on board anyway. Out on the runway it'll be well away from all that and the signal strength would be a lot lower than from a phone on board.

One thing I did have on a recent flight - cabin crew came on the PA system in-flight and specifically instructed passengers to ensure their phones were switched off (it wasn't the usual turn electronic devices off call), so I wonder if an errant signal got picked up by something. Obviously not something critical as I'm still here to recount. :)

Anyway, as the law currently stands, Ofcom plans aside, no radio transmitters are to be used onboard by passengers - and that includes bluetooth.

PS - Brainiac tried the mobile phone at a garage thing. They put several phones inside a petrol-soaked caravan. Nothing happened - until of course instinct took over and they detonated the caravan anyway. :D

My point was that, the plane is constantly bombarded with signals and so on, so having phones on board is going to make very little difference. A lot of this is hysteria.

I don't care about phones being used on planes as I tend to sink into my own world, watch the selection of dozens of movies, read my book, listen to my music, and just float away into my little zone. I often fall asleep. So frankly I don't feel affected by ofcom's decision. And it's about time this hysteria around mobile phones came to an end by ignorant beuraucrats that know nothing about technology.

The only reason I didn't mind the phones being banned on planes is the social aspect of it all. However the costs are going to be rather high and the novelty will wear off once they realise that they are being charged extortionate amounts for the plane's cellular service - even if it doesn't, people chat on planes anyway, babies cry etc... Frankly I have more important things to worry about - then again I'm a pretty laid back person, and I don't have to take 60 flights a year anymore :D \o/
 
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