Cell Phone trips GFI

[bobinaz123]

Figure this on out. When I stand in front of the sink in front of the bedroom of my 08 Camelot PDQ with my Palm Pre Plus cell in my left front pocket near the AC outlet, the GFI on that outlet trips. It only trips under this condition.

Any ideas?

Bob F

[EngineerMike]

Maybe you are out of minutes.

[bullydogs1]

Cells make an electrical interference (hold a cell next to your landline while talking and you will buzz buzz buzz every few minutes)...your GFI doesn't like it...you can try replacing the GFI or just turn off the cell and try again and you will see it is the electrical field it generates...

If it does that to a GFI, what does it mean it does for your brains?

[MonacoMama]

Originally Posted by bobinaz123

Figure this on out. When I stand in front of the sink in front of the bedroom of my 08 Camelot PDQ with my Palm Pre Plus cell in my left front pocket near the AC outlet, the GFI on that outlet trips. It only trips under this condition.

Any ideas?

Bob F

Put it in your right front pocket??

[mahon1993]

Must be one of those new "APPS" that tests GFI's. Neat.
Greg

[wa8yxm]

I hae the same problem when I key up on 10 meters

A cell phone, like my Kenwood TS-2000 is a radio transmitter'/receiver.. The major difference is frequency (Your cell is higher in frequency) and power (My TS-2000 has many times the power of your cell) Cell phones peak at 1.5 to 3 watts, I can hit 200 peak.(But trip the blasted GFCI at only 5 on 10 meters. on 80 meters, NO problem at all way lower frequency)

Now... You may be thinking "But I"m not talking on the cell phone when this happens so why is it transmitting" and you do indeed have a good question there.

The cell phone is really TWO transmitter/receivers (Well in the old days, today they combine them into one) one is the voice transceiver.. This is the one you transmit with.

The other is the command and control channel.. It is here where the tower says "Hey Bob's Phone.. You still there" and the phone answers "yup, I'm still here and you are Q-2 (Quality 2, weak signal) and the GFCI says CLICK.

[bobinaz123]

I have plenty of minutes, it does it in either pocket and I never paid of a new APP

Wa8xym, Thanks for the excellent analysis. It could be one of the internal clocks in the Palm phone that is radiating. I'll post this on the Palm pre Forum and see what I get.

Bob F

[wa8yxm]

zIt is not the clock, it is the transmitter.. As I said the phone and the tower are "handshaking" this happens every period of time.. I forget how much time.

In the old days I would play either Mini-Discs or CD's through a Radio/Tape player by use of the Line Audio adapter I'd plugged into the radio's expansion port

If my cell phone was lying next to the Audio cables I'd pick up the transmissions.. Every couple of minutes as I recall,, Threee or 4 packets of data got sent. as the tower and the phone checked with each other, decided how much power was needed for the transmitter and if it was time to hand off to another tower.

This happens without your knowledge.... Unless, like me, you are monitoring for it.

[bobinaz123]

I guess you're right. I'll empty my pockets before I wash my hand

[arrowhead]

The first thing I do is replace the GFI outlets with a regular outlet. They are nothing but trouble in an RV

[nodine]

A GFI outlet uses a differential transformer to detect an imbalance in current between the "black" wire (hot) and the "white" wire (return). All the current flowing into the appliance in the "black" wire should return to the source via the "white" wire only. If any current is returning in the "green" wire (safety ground) then there is an imbalance. Just a few milliamperes of imbalance will trip the GFI and open the circuit. I don't remember the trip point current but it only takes about 20 milliamperes through your heat to kill you. The differential transformer has many turns of wire and will be a tuned circuit at some fundamental frequency and harmonics of that center frequency. It may be that the periodic ping signal from your cell to the local tower is closer to one of the resonant points of one side of the differential transformer than the other side, thus inducing and imbalance in the circuit. You might be able to test this theory by shielding the outlet temporally with a ferrous material.

Bob

[bobinaz123]

Thanks Nodine for a good theory. I think I'll just try to keep the phone away from the GFI. It is a pain to have to reset everything when it trips. I've had other phones in the same pocket with no problem. I think this problem may be unique to the Palm pre. I asked about this on the pre forum and don't have a reply yet. If there is a better theory from them, I post it here.

[wa8yxm]

I would not replace the GFCI with a regular.. There is a reason they used GFCI (Safety) and I've met a few "Readdy Kilowatt" types who.. Well let's just say they lit up real good when they got plugged in. Even did it myself once with about 500 volts DC.. Thankfully DC you tend to throw.. still popped the fuse (Genuine 15 amp fuse)

Page 2: A different GFCI might be more immune to RFI (Radio Frequency Interference)

[bobinaz123]

I won't remove it. However, is there any reason why I couldn't move it?