OT: Radar interference?

In message snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net>, Tim+ snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes

Some collision avoidance systems are on 24GHz close to 5G mobile phone frequencies . Others are on 77GHz .

There's been articles in the tech publications about potential interference.

However there's no 5G in Kendal, unless it's appeared recently.

Maybe system testing going on? Latest info from affected motorist is that there *is* a 5G mast there (not that I?d know what one looks like). Do they look different?

Tim

I though the flavour of 5G being rolled-out in the UK was all sub-6GHz, rather than the mmWave that USA seems to be getting? I daresay there will be a few trial sites for the latter over here ... but UK/EU versions of recent phones are different from US models.

It could be, since normally its a cross modulation or leaky rf sensitive circuit which is affected. Back in the day the reverse was true of course. I had an amplifier in my bedroom which could pick up the pulses from radar as they fired in my direction, indeed even the echoes as well. One assumes that some kind of detection was going on inside the amp due to the strong pulses coming from the radars on the roof of a nearby radar makers building. Its no different to the way my old Sanyo walkman clone used to pick up taxis while playing tapes on the train at various places on the London to Leeds train.

On a car though, it may well be just that a particular unit needs some screening or bonding to earth somewhere. Might be worth talking to an owners club or one of the sites about that particular make. A friend had a bmw mini which had a great electronic dashboard, but one day driving past a site with large aerials in North London, all sorts of lights and alarms went off, but the car kept going. Turned out to be a poor earth bonding connection, probably there since it was made. Its this modern world we live in, I suppose. This is why I'm a little worried by self driving cars, since I doubt anyone would test for RF Interference corrupting the data. Brian

Yes there is confusion about how much use of 5G is on the new Iphones in this country. One would hope that its just a software configurable system, or I can see a lot of disappointed users. Brian

For the newest iPhones and Google pixels too, it seems the millimetre wave antenna is missing (and probably using a different chipset without the relevant radio)

I think were a long way off from having multigigabit bandwidth beamed from every lamp-post, even in city centres ...

I think you're right. Maybe it's collision avoidance radar that's spreading the coronavirus.

on 10/11/2020, brian supposed :

Too be fair - it cannot have arrived here from China, because I have never known anything sourced from China last and continue to work for this long.

China make a lot of stuff for UK/EU brands. If it's made to our spec is does tend to last, but it's the unbranded stuff you need to watch out for.

charles explained on 10/11/2020 :

Guess the virus was unbranded then :-)

How did you know it was picking up the echoes?

Bill