Cellphones & Aircraft

[Generarth]

A good discussion is going on here;

http://politicstalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?128@[email protected] (later posts are the most interesting)

& here;

http://politicstalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?128@[email protected]

The consensus (save for a few apologists) is that it's extremely unlikely at altitude onboard an aircraft. Also mention has been made that you need windows to get a signal. This puts the alleged calls by Barbara Olson (AA 77) and (allegedly) Edward Felt (UA 93) from the toilets of their respective planes (although this is only one of Theodore's versions of Barbara's call) into the 'not possible' basket as well.

And a personal anecdote to back this view up. Recently on a trip to Europe from Australia, I tested my phone on every flight. The results were exceptionally consistent. No connection after 90 seconds from takeoff (60 secs in one case) and no connection until after the plane had landed in every case. I made many, many attempts to get a connection in flight. I even retired to the toilet on several occasions to scan for providers (over Europe & Australia). Absolutely nothing.

In addition ICE trains (and TGV trains?) in Europe have technology to allow mobile phones to work onboard. (these trains travel at up to 300 km hour). So it would seem speed by itself is an issue, without the added complication of altitude.

The calls from UA 93 (& AA 77) would seem to be little miracles. If the calls were made, how were they made?

[savemefromdumbya]

1. The calls were made from firm ground

bexause the flights did not take off. Think about it, most of the info about the alleged hijackers came from this woman. Boxcutters! The whole thing was a sham.

[Gelliebeans]

2. I actually attempted to

make a phone call inside of a plane during my trip to England in June 2001. I had purchased a world phone (at the time it was quite expensive) in order to be able to be reached by my family anywhere I went in the world. I tried the phone in the USA during various flights and under various conditions from LA to Atlanta to Boston before going over to the UK. The only thing consistant with my experience is that I had absolutely NO service.
I could not get service until I was inside London's Gatwick Airport then I picked up Orange.
:shrug: FWIW

[mirandapriestly]

3. Thanks for posting that, I have meant

to take a cell phone along when I have flown, but I always forget. Interesting..

[Gelliebeans]

4. I remember it because

it was the first trip I had taken away from my kid and that was formost in my mind for us to be able to communicate regardless of the country or cost. The pilot did ask us not to use them but again the mindset was different back then because it was before 9-11. I am a rule breaker usually :evilgrin:

[KJF]

5. ICE trains

The ICE trains have a special coating on the windows that stops the signal getting out, that's why they need a repeater. No aircraft windows have such coating.

What we really need here is the phone company records, then at least we would know for sure exactly which calls were supposed to be made from cellphones. AFAIK the only was that was 100% certain made from a cellphone and successful is Felt's, although some of the others may well have been.

[wildbilln864]

6. I don't...

thionk they were...

[Strange1]

7. I am in the industry

I have been in the wireless industry for over 8 years and here is what I can add to this topic.
Tower design and antenna arrays.
Cell phone tower have antennas on them. These antennas are parallel to one another and a series of these antennas are used to provide a given coverage area for an individual tower. Each group of 2 antennas gives a coverage area similar to the shape of a dumb-bell. Think 3D. Infinity sign and you'll get the idea. Because of the nature of this coverage area, wireless providers are forced to use several pair of antenna per tower to provide coverage in a 360 degree area. This area is usually aimed at what ever they want to cover, ground level communication, building penetration etc... The typical range for a tower is usually 1-3 miles depending on terrain. Antennas are not aimed up to provide coverage above, they could be if they were tilted at an angle but you would have little to no coverage at ground level on the side of the antenna that is facing upwards.

Faraday cages:
This is from Wilkipedia
A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conducting material, or by a mesh of such material. Such an enclosure blocks out external static electrical fields. Faraday cages are named after physicist Michael Faraday, who built one in 1836 and explained its operation.
The electrical charges in the enclosing conductor repel each other and will therefore always reside on the outside surface of the cage. Any external static electrical field will cause the charges to rearrange so as to completely cancel the field's effects in the cage's interior. This effect is used for example to protect electronic equipment from lightning strikes and other electrostatic discharges.
To a large degree, Faraday cages also shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and its meshes, if present, are significantly smaller than the radiation's wavelength. This application of Faraday cages is explained under electromagnetic shielding.

Just some food for though.
PS
This is my first post here but I have been coming to this forum for several years.

[John Q. Citizen]

8. Thanks for posting Strange1. Glad to hear your industry knowledge on

this. Welcome!

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[John Q. Citizen]

10. Of course some of the calls from the flights were attributed to air phones, but

many were attributed to cell phones.

I wonder what the actually tally of cell phone calls were?

[Generarth]

11. Up to about 10 at least

Only a few now, but the most interesting one in my opinion is Tom Burnett's first one (9:28). That's because the plane was at at least 34,300 ft by the official account, and the call has never been claimed as an airphone call and because there is an official record of the call, because Deena Burnett rang the police and was patched through to the FBI before Tom called the second time (9:34).

Consequently if you prove that cellphones don't work at altitude in Boeings then that puts a large dent in the story of UA 93. And I think this can be done.

[William Seger]

13. And conversely...

... if you prove that cellphones do sometimes work at altitude in airplanes, that puts more than a large dent in this whole "impossible" argument.

The following page has some technical info, but particularly in view of your comment, note the anecdotes near the bottom of the page: http://www.911myths.com/html/mobiles_at_altitude.html

[wildbilln864]

12. here's a ...

kick 4 exposure!

[frylock]

14. i made repeated efforts to establish connectivity on a flight from dc to california..

I only ever received a usable signal (one bar) when flying over Las Vegas, and even then it was but only for about 3 secs before my phone was searching for a signal again. I monitored the phone closely throughout the flight.

The phone was a Samsung RL-A760 on the Sprint network.

[John Q. Citizen]

15. prevailing wisdom seems to be that cell phones were useless on planes at

cruising altitudes back in 2001.

[Grateful for Hope]

16. I worked for a cell phone company for 8 years

up until this past November when the company decided to go "geocon" and I and all others in my department became history and were laid off.

I worked in IT as a developer (background in statistics and programming). So, my expertise was not as an engineer (to say the least).

However, I had access to the engineers there, and, I did ask several of them about the likelihood that there would have been cell phone calls as described by the official account of the events of 9/11.

With no exception, I was told that "there had to be another explanation of the calls". As an aside, the office I worked in was very republican. What this tells me is that they had no reason to think that the official story was incorrect, and, what they thought was that "someone got some facts wrong".

For what it's worth.

[dbeach]

17. I watched Babs Olson on TV for yrs

she constantly showed a rt wing bias in her comments

then Surprise Surprise her spouse Ted Olson argues the Bush case before the SC in 2000 in what was a very large conflict of interest

Ms Olson's call sets up the official story on the morning of 911
which may have given MORE crediblity to the govt report cuz of her own history as a govt insider.

Mr Ted Olson slowly left govt work following 911..

[wildbilln864]

18. kicked

for the PNAC CTers!
:hi: