Killing your phone's GSM buzz with ferrite beads
By Joshua Fruhlinger 
posted Aug 2nd 2008 7:20PM
posted Aug 2nd 2008 7:20PM
[Via Make]
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sweet. No more surround sound static ever time someone comes over with a nextel.
Isn't Nextel CDMA?.. hense the Sprint/Nextel merger yesteryear..
Nextel is iDEN, hence the reason Nextel phones didn't work on Sprint's network.
Negative Ghost Rider, Nextel use's iDEN
Friends don't let friends use Nextel.
"nigga technology"
that episode of The Boondocks was totally about Boost Mobile
all hail the low-pass filter !
ummm... chocolate doughnuts...
eat them and see if they taste the same
They are also good for removing loose teeth without going to the dentist. Just place them over that wiggling tooth and bite it hard!
ah, well i stand corrected then ^-^
thx fur da klarificashun
pretty sweet deal, though, you know, it would be nice if this kind of thing would just be fixed in the factory room floor. simple fixes = major screw up on the manufacturer's part, at least as far as I'm concerned.
incidentally, "wan" should probably be want right there...
I wan a spell checker!
Get Mozilla Firefox. :P
(But if you are referring to the article, Firefox can miss it. WAN is an acronym.)
wan also means lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble; "the pale light of a half moon"; "a pale sun"; "the late afternoon light ...
isn't that wane?
no, wane means a gradual decrease in something over time, ex; the moon is on the wane, i.e. it is decreasing in visibility.
I only wish Firefox's spell check knew about other geeky things like, well anything. CDMA GPS etc
I thought everybody already new this.
I thought everybody spelt it like 'knew'.
luke, you must be knew here
@phanbouy
He he...I love it when someone uses incorrect grammar when correcting someone else's grammar. "Spelt" is a type of wheat and not part of the conjugation of the verb "spell," my friend.
@adam:
it might be a kind of wheat but "spelt" is also a past tense of "spell" and was rightly used in this context. also, it was used by "luke" and not by "phanbouy"
@adam
"Spelt" is the British past tense of "spell".
The word you are looking for is "spelled".
um....everyone I know spells the past tense of spell as "spelt," yet when i typed that, the auto spell-checker marked it as incorrect. However that's how I've been forming it since early childhood, and i live in MA--just saying that maybe different regions of the US spell it differently.
Now that I would want to see dale. Do you have different dictionaries too?
West-coast US-English.
this is all very relevant to the topic XD
You guys think you have it bad? My phone's earpiece has GSM buzz.
Damn, dude. Get a new phone.
SLVR L7 ain't exactly old, man.
he's not your man, guy
He's not your guy, buddy.
He's not your buddy, partner.
He's not your partner, chief.
He's not your chief, dude.
He's not your dude, gaylord.
I read that on lifehacker not to long ago.
You might also just try a piece of aluminum foil.
Take a piece of aluminum foil. Fold it over so its a bit bigger than your phone. Lay it down on the desk. Put the phone on top of it. See if the speaker buzz from your phone is gone. Works for me and several people I've suggested it to...
I've also tried this in my car, placing a piece of aluminum foil under a rubber mat where I place my phone, and it works pretty well there too...
Originally saw this tip on an iPhone site, where somebody even tried it by taping a small piece of aluminum foil to the back of the iPhone. Worked there too. And yes, the phone still works...
I've heard that--if you take a piece of tinfoil, about 30" by 30", center it on top of your head, fold the corners down under your chin, then fold over the remaining flaps taking care not to create any gaps, and smooth it out to lay as flat as possible over your skin and hair--you can get rid of the GSM buzzing in your head.
Anyone know if this fix would work with speakers in a car? Theoretically it would, but the example only uses computer speakers.
If you care enough about the insignificant GSM buzz on your car speakers compared to the road noise and interference from your engine, you can pull the speakers out and throw these around the plugs, but honestly, I wouldn't say it's worth it.
Yeah, I think I read it on Lifehacker also...
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/tips/2008/06/26/magnets_kill_the_cell_phone_speaker_buzz-2.html
So you only *think* so? You didn't read it?
Sorry, grammar police abuse.
You don't even want to know what I have laying around in my spaghetti drawer.
Um.... Spaghetti?
Jim, you're right.
a flying monster?
So why bring it up at all?
I mean, the fact that you had brought up the topic would only lead to further enthusiasm towards knowing the contents your said spaghetti drawer. If you hadn't made the comment in the first place, you'd probably be saving some lazy chum about 2-5 seconds of their ever-so-interesting lives, but instead you found the need to make an necessary and self-contradicting remark and now some other lazy chum has spent 10+ seconds reading my rebuttal. GOOD GOING, GAWD.
Yes, I have spaghetti and a flying monster in my spaghetti drawer. How did you guess?!??!
And shadowfox952, you're a troll.
flying spaghetti monster... south park reference, or am i stretching it here?
The Flying Spaghetti Monster "argument" is used when someone is trying to debate against the existence of God.
what the hell is a spaghetti drawer? i mean... i get it but seriously?
I keep magnetic horse shoes and some spelt for the invisible pink unicorn in my spaghetti drawer.
huh... i didn't know unicorns liked heirloom grains
Negative Ghost Rider, Nextel use's iDEN
That would be "negative GhostWRITER." Ghostrider is a comic book character.
With a pretty sweet motorcycle!
He missuses "use's" and you correct "Ghost Rider" usage?
Adam...*palms face*
I'm glad (really, this isn't sarcasm) that there are actually people on the Internet that know proper grammar usage and spelling. Sometimes reading comments on Weblogs, Inc blogs, forums, etc. I get so frustrated at what we've come to. This has been refreshing.
Also: his "ghostrider" references the movie, 'Top Gun.' When Tom 'Thetan' Cruise's character requests a fly-by, the tower responds, "negative, Ghostrider. The pattern is full." Where 'ghostrider' refers to an unknown aircraft, or anonymous/general aircraft, as in his and Goose's, since it was just a training thing at Miramar.
That was longer than I'd have liked. Sorry.
I always noticed this buzz in my high school classrooms. Each room had a single speaker/mic installed in the ceiling for communication with the front office, as well as for daily announcements.
We always knew when someone with a T-Mobile or Cingular phone was about to get a text or call when the speaker "mysteriously" started buzzing.
I tried this after reading about this solution a few weeks ago. It did nothing for me. A complete waste of time. Others have failed too:
http://kten.mytexoma.com/kickapps/_Red-Bull-Can-radio-interference-shield-busted-as-a-hoax/video/245565/21876.html
While using a redbull can is a hoax, using magnets as ferrite beads is not. In fact, using magnets for shielding and interference has been a common practice in electronics for a long time.
Did you try exactly what's suggested in this article? Wrapping an aluminium sheet around your cell phone is not the same thing, and I'm not suprised it doesn't fix anything...
This didn't work for me either. I will be replacing my current Klipsch speakers for cheaper Logitech ones that seem immune to this.
In many cases the RFI is happening inside the amplifier electronics of the speaker. The best that ferrite beads could do in this case is prevent RFI from entering via audio or power connections. It might be enough to help in some cases though depending on how the RFI is getting into the circuit...
what about portable phones?
I have one that does the "flash" thing and switches over to the other line, whenever it catches strong GSM buzz.... quite annoying
How do they turn the ferrets into beads, and why?
Haha, They compress them and mix them with dried fairies to make magnetic beads.
One time I got pissed when my clock radio buzzed at like 3 am so I threw it against the wall. My mom walks in to my room that morning and sees a mangled pile of plastic and wires on the floor and is like wtf lol
yes. YES!!!!
wtf does this have to do with ferrite beads?
Nicroz... everything. It's so intertwined the full scope can't be placed in a simple comment. Also, it might cause widespread panic.
You admit you live with your mother in a public forum. This confuses me.
It affects the sound quality, ..........
what a trade off
Ferrite is iron, how is a lump of iron affecting sound quality?
I only wish there was a way to stop this from the phone, or better yet, reconfigure gsm so that it doesnt do that. I work at a Tv station and its a nuisance having to turn off my phone every time I walk into the control room. Everyone with Verizon and Sprint keeps on texting a surfing away and I have to be stuck with a phone turned off. Oh well, atleast this helps alot at home. Thanks.
Maybe there's a reason it comes with your TV, so you'll use them, not have extra lying around?
I have been dealing with this at work. I'm in the business of digitizing 16mm film. Problem is, our digitizer does not capture audio as well, so we are using another projector to capture audio, then sync the two together. Problem is, the 16mm projector we use for audio receives that GSM buzz from somewhere outside our office. I found the article on lifehacker that talked about this, but the problem is, even if I attached it to the speaker cables, the GSM buzz still comes through the audio output (unbalanced 1/4"). There are no cables that go to the output, it is wired directly into the sound board inside the projector. In a desperate attempt, I attached the ferrite beads to the cable coming out of the projector, but it didn't help. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
ferrite beads I have found are so so, best results I have are with 470pf ceramic caps between the DC- earth and the positive connecting terminal. As an EE design engineer if it's buzzing in this day and age with mobiles being around for years I would say it has been poorly designed. I would question the quality of any product that produces buzzing around mobiles today. Yes I have designed audio equipment that doesnt buzz with a mobile phone antenna within 5cm of the motherboard, its just a matter of research and know how.
You're right of course, but its pretty wide-spread. My desktop Bose speakers buzz. My Acura TL speakers buzz. My Plantronics 900MHz phone headset buzzes, the Sony clock radio I had in my last hotel room buzzes, the speaker that came with my two-year old Dell desktop buzzes...
dirk-dirka-dirk--dirka-dirka-dirka-dirk
Dumb question... but how do those devices get past the infamous Part 15 of the FCC rules... the one on everything that says how it can't interfere with other devices? Or are cellphones exempt from that? Working in TV it annoys me to know people are walking around with these things that interfere with our wired and wireless headsets and mics...
the same way every bully passes a test. they cheat.
where the shit is my spaghetti drawer that sounds awesome!
This solution is going to affect the frequency response of your speakers, much like turning on an equalizer.
I tried this set up this morning... The cell phone popping noise is the bane of my speakers existence. So much so, that I don't use them much. After liberating three ferrite beads from a couple monitor cables, I wrapped the speaker wire through the beads close to the speaker which didn't help, and then tried them close to the sub where the amp is. I noticed absolutely no change at all. Then I realized this article talks about GSM. My interference is from my blackberry. That's GPRS and/or EDGE, right? Should this not block that interference as well?
Will this stop noise from florescent lights and dimmer switches?
Also, I've heard that its always best to run audio cables and power cables separately - will these negate the need to do so?
the ferrite beads dont work. i just tried it and it made no difference. it is either a hoax or works 1% of the time. i have yet to see anyone confirm that it has worked for them. my only hope is that a 3g signal shows up at my house soon, no buzzing then.......
Nice. Works very well.
I like the other option buried inside the comments of this article:
Slide iphone into an anti-static bag and voila!
Take a look at www.stopthebuzzin.com This site has another solution
to shield or dissapate the rf that causes the buzz and it dosen't
require you to scavange for ferrite beads in your spaghetti drawer.