Amish Country, near Wooster Ohio and some points south, extending to Berlin
(pronounced Ber' lin by the locals). I love it there, I'm currently looking
for an Amish family to adopt me, but I get no responses over the Internet ;-)

Anyway, me, my wife, my Alinco DJ-X10T scanner and my Sony 7600GR ventured
there for a several days stay. Being out in the middle of nowhere much of the
time, I did not get much use from the Alinco, except to receive NWS
transmissions as bad weather arose.

Unfortunately, we didn't get much use from our Cell Phones either. We noticed
that the phones would go from having strong signals to no signals at times.
Both phones are with different systems, therefore we had a comparison in
performance. We have a Sprint and a TracFone, and they both experienced signal
losses at various times, though I wouldn't say both at the same time. I felt
that the relative strong to non-existent signals were likely related more to
the cell tower's ability to handle only X amount of calls, and that when the
tower was totally in use, it simply failed to respond to the cell phone,
thereby giving the perception that the signal had dropped to zero. If you get
a line, you can keep it, you don't experience the fluctuating signal levels
like you do when the phone is polling for a tower. Is this possible?

How does this segue into shortwave?

I had the Sony, using a reel antenna deployed within the motel room, and in
the early evening, was listening to my usual stuff, 12.160 and 9.475 or
perhaps even a little later at 3.210 MHz. At times I noticed that the radio
was making a noise similar to the Porpoise (or Dolphin) on the old TV show
"Flipper", but at a slower rate. It was maddening. I never heard it before,
and it came and went. Was it the Sony, not likely? I did try the Alinco on the
same frequencies, and though the radio signal was clearly heard, the noise
wasn't. I tried the Sony without the reel antenna, but with the telescoping
antenna fully deployed, still got the noise. How about the location? Maybe the
motel used some type of electronic device that was causing this sporadic
noise?

Eventually I noticed that the cell phone was causing the noise. It seems that
when the signal would drop out, the phone would search for service, and this
would cause the noise. When I shut the phone off, the noise ceased. I did this
several times, since the noise lasted for 30 seconds (more or less), I was
able to turn the phone off at the beginning of the noise on the radio. Every
time, the noise would instantly cease. With the phone off, no noise ever
occurred.

Any insight into this? I know that the frequencies involved are extremely
divergent, was it possible that the Sony was experiencing signal injection
into the IF or elsewhere?

Regards.

Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

The Dawn Soliloquy schrieb:

[An ICF-SW7600G, a cell phone, and ...]
I had the Sony, using a reel antenna deployed within the motel room, and in
the early evening, was listening to my usual stuff, 12.160 and 9.475 or
perhaps even a little later at 3.210 MHz. At times I noticed that the radio
was making a noise similar to the Porpoise (or Dolphin) on the old TV show
"Flipper", but at a slower rate. It was maddening. I never heard it before,
and it came and went. Was it the Sony, not likely? I did try the Alinco on the
same frequencies, and though the radio signal was clearly heard, the noise
wasn't. I tried the Sony without the reel antenna, but with the telescoping
antenna fully deployed, still got the noise. How about the location? Maybe the
motel used some type of electronic device that was causing this sporadic
noise?

Eventually I noticed that the cell phone was causing the noise. It seems that
when the signal would drop out, the phone would search for service, and this
would cause the noise. When I shut the phone off, the noise ceased.

[snip]
Any insight into this? I know that the frequencies involved are extremely
divergent, was it possible that the Sony was experiencing signal injection
into the IF or elsewhere?

If anything, I'd suspect the 1st IF @55.845 MHz - there's certainly not
much room for shielding in this little rx, and a strong signal even at
higher frequencies might creep in there (a cell phone searching for a
transmitter probably switches to full transmission power). Since the
scanner didn't show these noises, it's rather unlikely that the cell
phone itself broadcast on shortwave.

Stephan
--
Home: http://stephan.win31.de/ | Webm.: http://www.i24.com/
PC#6: i440LX, 2xCel300A, 256 MB, 18 GB, ATI AGP 32 MB, 110W
This is a SCSI-inside, Legacy-plus, TCPA-free computer
Reply to newsgroup only.