I find that my phone disturbes the FM radio signal, I hear a light ticking noise on the radio. When I place the phone futher away the ticking stops.
How do I prevent my phone from doing this?
Flight mode, I’d say. Or to minimize it, less data hungry apps. As far as I can tell it’s the RF that causes such disturbances, not the operation of the phone itself. And then more the mobile network than for instance Wi-Fi.
But all in all that’s pretty normal. Even non-smart phones used to do noise when placed next to an active speaker, but they did that only once every few minutes when they had to report back to the tower that they are still there (or when a message arrived or a call came in - and an active call could be heard clearly as ticking noise in the speaker).
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Hello Martin,
Thanks for your reply. My problem is that my phone also disturbs My VHF
radio transmitter on board of my ship.
I can of course turn the phone off or put it in flight mode but then
nobody can reach me.
Kind regards,
Paul
Well, let’s narrow the issue down a bit: Does the issue persist if your phone is in flight mode? If that’s the case, then the phone itself has an EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) issue. We cannot exclude that but I’d assume that’s not the case. In that case I’d expect to have more issues when the phone is active (screen on, opening apps etc.).
If it stops when being in flight mode then we know for sure that it is related to the mobile data that it sends. While non-smart phones could put their RF to sleep most of the times, smartphones are “always on” and thus have to communicate quite a lot, depending on the apps used. If no app wants to communicate then you’ll likely have more radio silence.
No matter which of those two things is the root cause, I’d like to see if this is any different with a different smartphone. If not you won’t get rid of the issue unless you move your phone further away from your radio.
I’m not too familiar with VHF marine equipment, but from what I’ve found that seems to be very sensitive and so in areas with a lot of electromagnetic interference you might notice that, too. If you put a device next to it that transmits with up to 200mW then it’s hard for any radio equipment to ignore that.
Hello Martin,
I missed your reply until now, I will check what it does in flight mode amd let you know.
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