Here's another interesting article on the topic of Wi-Fi aboard commercial flights (from USA Today).
Should airlines let passengers make calls via Wi-Fi? http://usat.me/?36388696 Copyright 2009, USATODAY.com Wyatt Technical Services, LLC 56 Aspen Dr. Woodland Park, CO 80863 Email: [email protected] Web: www.emc-seminars.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethwyatt (719) 310-5418 On Sep 24, 2009, at 2:06 PM, Brian O'Connell wrote: It bothers me that Boeing was not able to reproduce any reported EMI incident, so you EMC experts will have to tell me if this concern is justified. In a previous era, I did avionics in the military. Pilot and/or RSO griped that the recon radar was interfering with radio altimeter - form returned with 'A799'. Another day, another aircraft - aircrew griped that nav radar interfering with radio altimeter - still not able to repro. Several iterations and about a year later, was playing with the nav radar while waiting on other systems - observed an intermittent clack under the foot panel - identified as the power relay to the radio altimeter. Root cause - when a unique combo of systems were sequenced, and when some connectors had some degree of corrosion, and when a wave guide tee was not clamped, and when the cable to the weight on wheels switch was not routed correctly, 'enough' noise caused a discrete bipolar transistor to remove power to the radio altimeter power relay. Based on these anecdotal incidents, it is possible that Boeing had not, in fact, reproduced the operational/maintenance conditions that caused the EMI incident. Brian -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Doug Nix Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 11:53 AM To: ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen Cc: Ted Eckert; [email protected] Subject: Re: Article on "portable electronics" aboard airplanes Gert, I found your link broken, but here is one that works: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfere.html You can go to an HTML or Text only page, or you can download a pdf. If anyone wants the pdf, just drop me a note and I will email it to you. -- Doug Nix, A.Sc.T. IEEE PSES Toronto Chapter Toronto Section, Ontario, Canada [email protected] mobile (519) 729-5704 fax (519) 653-1318 On 24-Sep-09, at 2:20 PM, ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen wrote: I would recommend all that are interested in this to read the Boeing article. http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfe re_textonly .html Conclusion: no interference from PED has ever been proven. (but for a guy in 1964 operating a FM transmitter air-borne) Gert Gremmen -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Namens Ted Eckert Verzonden: donderdag 24 september 2009 17:27 Aan: [email protected] Onderwerp: RE: Article on "portable electronics" aboard airplanes I don't know of the K:M test. This is the research of which I am aware. http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060228_cellphone.html http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfe re_textonly .html http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/unsafe-at-any -airspeed http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2003_03.PDF There is clearly an increased risk, but there is little conclusive data on the magnitude of that risk. The Boeing document summarizes it succinctly. "The potential is great that PEDs [personal electronic devices] will continue to be blamed for some anomalies regardless of whether they are the true cause. As a result, regulatory agencies and operators continue to offer the current policy for PED use on airplanes as the best safety measure." Ted Eckert Compliance Engineer Microsoft Corporation [email protected] The opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. -----Original Message----- From: Gartman, Richard [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:33 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Article on "portable electronics" aboard airplanes The best reason I have heard from a flight attendant (this happened only once) for putting the computer away was " do you want a 5 pound projectile flying around the cabin if there is an incident". You cannot argue with that logic. Does any on have the report of the KLM/FCC cell phone test that was done in Phoenix several years back. As I hear the story, a KLM "Boeing" aircraft was filled with cell phones (one in each seat) and they all went active at the same time. The intent was to see if a plane loaded with cell phones could cause interruption to the aircrafts electronics. I am sure this group would enjoy that report. Have a great day W. Richard Gartman, MS, CSP -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Javor Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:18 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Article on "portable electronics" aboard airplanes While having stuff put away during take-off and landing makes sense, just as you say, protection of aircraft radio and navigation receivers is the primary driver. Paralleling control of rfi on the ground, the first such rfi control only applied to radios, because of local oscillators, and then later applied to digital electronics, because the clocks and their harmonics could radiate just like the radio's LO could. Ken Javor Phone: (256) 650-5261 From: Nick Williams <[email protected]> Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:02:55 +0100 To: Ken Wyatt <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Article on "portable electronics" aboard airplanes I've always understood that, certainly so far as commercial airliners are concerned, EMC was never really the issue. Far more to the point is the fact that take off and landing are statistically the most likely time for there to be an emergency which requires the passengers to be paying attention to what the cabin attendants have to say rather than listening to or fiddling with their personal possessions. It also can't do any harm for the cabin not to be cluttered up with laptops and other junk for people to trip over if you need to get everyone off in a hurry. Nick. At 22:26 -0600 23/9/09, Ken Wyatt wrote: I thought I'd post this link to a semi-rant by one of the Gizmodo editors on the use of electronics aboard aircraft. He brings up some good points regarding the EMI properties of various gadgets. It's also interesting how he and other non-EMCers think on the whole subject. Has anyone on this list studied the emissions characteristics ("on" versus sleep mode) for various portable electronic products? I'd love to not be hassled when using my Bose headphones. http://gizmodo.com/5366128/giz-explains-how-to-fix-the-airlin es-stupid-p ortab le-gadget-rules Regards, Ken ---------------------------------------------- Wyatt Technical Services, LLC 56 Aspen Dr. Woodland Park, CO 80863 - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. 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