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Tue, May 29, 2007 15:00 EDT

Why Your BlackBerry Causes Speakers to Buzz

Topic: Infrastructure

Blog: Information Collective

Current Rating: 5 Comments: 39

A few weeks back, I reviewed four smartphones in conjunction with a handful of IT executives. In that review, I briefly touched upon the annoying buzz the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) phones caused when sending or receiving a communication in close proximity to speakers—radio, computer, car, auditorium, whatever.(Specifically, that the BlackBerry Pearl seemed to yield more buzzing than any of the other phones we reviewed.)

 

Recently, I was reminded of this frustrating phenomenon at MIT’s Sloan CIO Symposium when the overhead Bose speakers in the main auditorium began buzzing like disgruntled honey bees. I looked directly to my right to find the guy next to me tapping away maniacally on his BlackBerry. He didn’t even notice the buzzing, but there were a number of smiling faces across the room that quite obviously did. All day, I couldn’t help but notice how many handhelds were in use around me. BlackBerrys, Treos, iPaqs, T-Mobile Dash phones, various Motorola and LG handsets and plenty of others I didn’t recognize at first glance. And nobody could stop playing with themselves for more than a minute or two, be it during a session or while networking.

 

Let me start by saying that regardless of the title of this blog post, the buzzing speaker issue is by no means caused only by BlackBerrys. I chose the title based on my own experience with the handhelds and the fact that the Cingular Pearl was the device that caused the most frequent and most pronounced buzz of the four phones I recently reviewed. (That, and because I know many of you are so addicted to your BlackBerrys that you'll read anything with "the B word" in the title.)

 

To get to the root of the issue, I spoke with Duncan Bradley, Research In Motion's (RIM) director of global market intelligence. RIM is the BlackBerry manufacturer. Bradley explained to me that cell phones cause this buzzing interference when near some speakers or other devices that can resonate radio frequencies (RF) because such devices often feature poor quality shielding mechanisms to block radio waves from being received. The devices act as passive antennas, picking up cell phone radio signals, but they don't have any way to modulate or translate them into anything intelligible, according to Bradley. Speakers or other electronics with higher quality shielding mechanisms yield less buzzing when near phones, he said.

 

Bradley also informed me that it’s

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Average (17 votes)
5
 
 
Tue, May 29, 2007 19:20 EDT
Posted by: remi
Rating: 83.3333

This is a very informative article, thank you. I am using a Dash from T-Mobile, mostly in the Bay Area, where I work and live.

While I understand the annoyance of the buzz, I am curious to know when the Bay Area will finally be properly covered by the major operators. I cannot believe the number of spots where there is no signal. I would give the buzz a priority 1,000 compared to this one!

 
Wed, May 30, 2007 13:05 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Vince
Rating: 80

It's not relly the speaker itself. Here's the mechanism:

The speaker coil and the cable from the amplifier act as an antenna. The radio frequency signal (RF) is led thereby to the last stages of the amplifier, and often from there via the gound of the system to eariler stages.

The semiconductors in the amp convert some of that radio wave to audio noise, and that noise gets amplified back and presented to the speaker.

I am clarifying this to calm some worries. If it was a matter of the radio wave exciting the speaker directly, there would simply not be enough energy to be audible. Without knowing this fact, people might assume that there is a whole lot of dangerous RF energy from the wireless device, when in fact it is a very tiny amount.

A technician cam remove this interference completely, not best by huge amounts of shielding, but by adding a few bypassing componemts at the output of the amp, TV, or other audio device.

 
Wed, May 30, 2007 13:12 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Vince
Rating: 65

OH, BTW, in the case of the auditorium sound system or a component audio system, it is just as likely to happen due to that energy coming into the inputs, like via the microhone cable or the interconnecting cables. Same bypassing rules apply.

For technicians wishing to solve this problem for their equipment, I recommend the ARRL publication about Radio Frequency Interference. (title?)

 
Wed, May 30, 2007 18:27 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Vince
Rating: 83.3333

As far as the seriousness of the problem, it is low to medium importance at this time, but will get rapidly worse as wireless technology prolifertes.

I lay this directly in the lap of the FCC (here in America, anuway.) Equipment can be designed to minimize susceptibility to interference, but since it is not something that can ber determined to be a problem in the electronics showroom, some sort of susceptibility rating should be mandated to be reported "on the box", if not a mandate requiring better resistance to interference.

The added component costs are trivial. Remember, it's not the fault of the transmitters, but the existing receivers.

Out of curiosity, I did a few searches for aftermarket interference-limiting devices and surprisingly I found very little. There should be RF-filtering audio adaptors, speaker filters with quick connectors, and the like. There are a few, but not in the mainstrean electonic supply, other than the snap-on ferrite chokes at Radio Shack, which are not terribly effective for this type on interference.

I really expect this to change, though, as the problem gets worse. Also, fiber optic interconnects for audio equipment are becoming more common, which are completely immune to RFI.

Footnote: Corporations play games with regulation, too. A few decades back. a major computer manufacturer in the UK introduced their education-oriented machine into the US. Their US competitors managed to get the govenment to specify strict noise output regulations on the imported product, but not the domestic competitor. The shielding required easily added $50 to the foreign product, which amounted to a hidden import duty. (This was before PCs were as universal)

Mostly, it seems to me, the FCC responds to corporation's needs rather than those of the users.

 
Thu, Jun 7, 2007 9:27 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: kt0mm
Rating: 85

The ARRL RFI Book -- 2nd Edition. Practical Cures for Radio Frequency Interference.
(ISBN: 0-87259-989-2) #9892 -- $29.95

Available via: www.arrl.org

-----------------------------

Vince is correct. It is the speakers/amplifiers, not the phones, which require better engineering. -- Under U.S. law, for example, FCC licensed transmitters (such as cell phones) are required to adhere to certain design requirements. Once they do so, they have done their part and may be manufactured and sold.
Amplifiers and speakers are regulated under FCC Part 15, and are legally obliged to tolerate interference from licensed devices. IF the amplifier/speaker manufacturers would spend another $2-3 on filtration at the point of manufacture, this interference would be a non-issue.

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