How well do cell phone signal jammers work?

[VINMAN]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Yes, I agree! But those requests are routinely ignored, as evidenced in the memorial service I mentioned here earlier. And even where it's a law to drive with hands-free, it's not enforced and totally ignored. I believe NJ and NYC have such laws now too. I haven't driven in NYC in a while, but haven't noticed any difference in my regular trips to NJ. Just amazing that everyone else's calls are a driving distraction, but if it's you personally, it's of the utmost importance.

I live in NJ and work in NYC. The cell phone laws are a total joke! They are practically unenforceable.

[RANDY P]

Originally Posted by on2wheels52

Ok, how about in my place of business? It would certainly be cheaper to crank up a stereo but I fear they would just talk louder. I find it incredibly rude/annoying to have joes yacking away in my shop. On days I'm feeling a bit rude myself I've been known to tell them to take it outside.
Jim

+1 my pet peeve. Especially loud people on cell phones. No one is THAT important to interrupt the rest of the world. It's also a sign you have terrible time management.

Talking on the cell phone in public out loud as a fashion statement died in the 80's with ponytails and leather neckties.

rjp

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

...They are practically unenforceable.

True,

But in my area of NY, LI specifically it was a drastic improvement.

[dbrisson]

I love how this rick gets to determine what cell phone use is "dangerous" and which is not, or are they all dangerous.

He thinks he would be jamming all of the bad phone calls and not any vital ones and can somehow tell the difference. Plus without any real knowledge of near field and far field transmissions he "thinks" he will have the perfect sphere around him of trouble free zone. Keep "thinking", heck actually spend the money for a box with 3 antennas to jam that wide of a bandwidth with very little power or amplification.

If the jammer had any real power to it, detection would be easy and similar to how the spectre iii and iv's work. Thats a radar detector - detector.

Its really a matter if there are people looking for it, and rick thinks no one is. Then again the FCC, cell providers and service providers (comsearch) do not have cars and trucks roving and mapping the current tower transmissions for both clarity and license revenue purposes. Each of these similar to wifi mappers locate and triangulate via gps and signal strength. Sure you could get by for quite some time but who really knows. Good luck with that.

The thing that really gets the goat is the same people who whine about the govt making stupid rules or having bizarre paperwork are the ones who themselves feel they can dictate whats dangerous, whats acceptable, and whats not.

Some motorcycles drivers are dangerous lets jam them, some sports cars are dangerous lets jam them. ugh

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by cstreit

One of those obnoxious jagoff's are simply going to make call after call with their now non-working phone inside that place going "Hello? Hello? Beep beep beep Hello? Dammit..." Redial beep beep beep, and on and on....

...and the soccer mom is going to be looking down through her phone-logs for the number and redialing while not watching the road putting you at more risk.

Disconnects are a way of life for cell phones. How do these people currently deal with them? If a disconnect causes someone to crash into a tree, maybe there wasn't any room for them in the gene pool in the first place.

And don't get me started on the dorks who wear the Borg earpieces 24/7

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by widebody911

Disconnects are a way of life for cell phones. How do these people currently deal with them? If a disconnect causes someone to crash into a tree, maybe there wasn't any room for them in the gene pool in the first place.

And don't get me started on the dorks who wear the Borg earpieces 24/7

Just when I thought Thom and I would never even agree on what day it is....we are in lockstep on this one.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by widebody911

Disconnects are a way of life for cell phones.

Depends on where you live. In NY my cell service was nearly useless. Here in TX it's so good that I'm not bothering with a land line.

[jyl]

Rick, suppose when their signal is cut off, those easily distracted people don't crash into a tree, but instead into you? That's my point.

Anyway, I did some looking into the jammer you linked to. You can buy them for $44 at dealextreme. There are a lot of user reviews, and links to websites showing how people have tried to get them to work. It looks to me like (1) this cheapo jammer may come tuned for Asian and/or European frequencies, not US carrier frequencies, (2) you may have to open it up and adjust some pots to get it to jam successfully, using phones from each of the carriers in trial-and-error tests, (3) even if/when it is adjusted correctly, it only works in a smallish room indoors, or if you are within several feet of the cellphone outdoors, and may not work at all in areas where cell signal strength is high, (4) it actually seems to take a few seconds to terminate someone's ongoing connection, during which the person doesn't necessarily notice anything.

So it seems like this cheapo jammer is not going to create a sweeping zone of instant cellphone silence around your bike as you split the lanes. Maybe if you ride right next to someone for several seconds, in an area that is 2 bars for his particular carrier, you could eventually interrupt his call.

My impression is that this jammer would be better for cutting people off in a small indoor space like a Starbucks or on a subway train.

For your idea, I'm guessing you'd need a more expensive and powerful jammer, probably wired to the bike.

As you can tell, I got kind of interested in the jammer idea myself, although I was thinking an appropriate use would be movie theatres, and not keeping the thing on constantly or immediately jamming every call, but using it if someone made/took a call and continued to loudly talk on and on about obviously non-emergency stuff - i.e. someone truly obnoxious. The problem is, that person would probably have to be within a few rows of you.

If you learn of a cheap jammer that actually works out of the box, tell me about it - but by PM not public post, kindly.

And of course my interest is purely academic, as I would never wilfully violate the US Code nor any other statute, code, ordinance, regulation, bylaw, paragraph, footnote, semicolon, comma, or period.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

You're right , Rick! The cell phone has created a whole new level of rudeness and obnoxiousness. Why should my dinner in a relaxing restaurant be disturbed by someones loud phone conversation?? Or my ride home at the end of a hard days work? Is it necessary to be yakking on the phone when you are at a checkout counter and the clerk is trying to talk to you?

I whole heartedly agree...

BUT I also strongly disagree with the jamming idea, as others have said how do you know if you are not going to inadvertently interrupt a life or dead situation call?

I have a cell phone, I don't bring it with me to church, turn it off when I go out to eat... what we need here is a tiny bit of common sense.

[Flatbutt1]

I've been told that cell phones may interfere with airliner system functions. IF that is true wouldn't a jammer cause even more problems? (I have no idea how the sytems on airplanes work)

[Tishabet]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

I whole heartedly agree...

BUT I also strongly disagree with the jamming idea, as others have said how do you know if you are not going to inadvertently interrupt a life or dead situation call?

I have a cell phone, I don't bring it with me to church, turn it off when I go out to eat... what we need here is a tiny bit of common sense.

I am in 100% agreement with this statement.

I doubt you'll find anyone on this thread who doesn't share this annoyance; driving while holding a cell to your ear is distracting to the driver. Speaking on your cell at the table during a meal is, IMHO, the absolute height of gauche. That kind of stuff really grinds my gears!

My disagreement is with the proposed method. I have absolutely no problem with the owner of a business like a restaurant or movie theater operating a jammer. However, the idea of someone with a moving bubble of cell phone jamming around them strikes me as self-concerned and not particularly respectful of others. That's the root of my objection to the idea.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Flatbutt1

I've been told that cell phones may interfere with airliner system functions. IF that is true wouldn't a jammer cause even more problems? (I have no idea how the sytems on airplanes work)

IF that is true, then I'd totally drop the idea. Case closed. But how in the world can a jammer rated for a radius of 10-20 meters affect a plane thousands of meters away or even a tower, the closest of which would still be about that far away, even if I were near an airport?

And I just don't get the "it may be an emergency call" suggestions. Cell signals drop all the time. I've never heard of someone running off the road because their cell signal dropped or someone unable to get 911 because they were in a dead spot. I've been in plenty of remote locations with no cell reception. Lack of service didn't deter me in the least from going there. Life really did exist and went on just fine before cell phones.

[Steve Carlton]

Most on this thread addressing your wife's concerns agree with her. You yourself understand cell phone use in a car reduces safety, yet can't understand how a dropped call aggravates the situation? Why bother to ask for our opinion if you're going to completely disregard it?

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

Most on this thread addressing your wife's concerns agree with her. You yourself understand cell phone use in a car reduces safety, yet can't understand how a dropped call aggravates the situation? Why bother to ask for our opinion if you're going to completely disregard it?

I never said I was going to disregard everyone's opinions here. I would be interested to know how many dangerous situations have been caused by dropped signals. I'm not aware of any accidents caused by that. What I will disregard, though, is that some people think their personal cell phone calls are the most important thing in the world and far overides safe driving. Those people's opinions don't count with me. Road safety trumps all when on the road. When I've played hooky from work and gone on a trip and the Blackberry started buzzing, I just pull over, check the messages and make my calls. I don't view it as a right to endanger everyone around me because I have to check my voicemail or call clients back, important though those things may be for my job. They are not important for anyone else and doing such while driving makes a dangerous situation for others.

[Steve Carlton]

Where's your common sense? You think there's no loss of attention paid to driving while looking at your phone to see if it's connected and re-dialing? You need statistics on dropped cell phone call accidents? You can't guarantee in advance that your selfish behavior isn't going to cause an accident. Someone or some child could get hurt or killed so you can create your "safe bubble." But I guess it's okay, because you won't get caught.

[frogger]

He'll accept your opinion if it's the same as the one he started with.

[Gogar]

Scenario: Rick enjoys fantastic afternoon ride on his BMW through the rolling rural hills of Virginia.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, annoying cellphone-addicted gum-chewing mallrat twit in car, on cellphone, cuts him off; Rick averts disaster by dumping his bike in the median but breaks an arm and a leg in the process.

Local volunteer fire-rescue, having it's Sunday Afternoon lunchtime meeting at Applebees, never gets the call because the jammer-equipped morality cop sitting in the next booth didn't want to be bothered by other people's needless meal-time cell phone calls.

You can't be MORALITY VIGILANTE, Rick; no matter how right you are about the topic. Morality vigilantes bomb abortion clinics and stuff.

[Rick Lee]

Uh, where did I write anything about jamming calls for kicks or to implement some morality? I really only care about road safety. Anyway Gogar, I think the chances my crashing my bike are exponentially greater than my chances of not being rescued because of a lack of cell service, whether due to a jammer or just a plain dead zone.

[Gogar]

First post of your thread:

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I'm thinking of getting one of these to keep in the car, on the bike and bring into restaurants.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Gogar

First post of your thread:

And how is that in any way morality vigilantism? If it makes you feel better, I'd be sure to turn it off anytime I got near a tour bus on the hwy. or was at a concert.