Originally Posted by nmenaker
But, as for cell phones. Yeah, I couple of baby's is one thing, but people ALWAYS talk louder on their cell phones - even though they don't have to. They just think they have to, since it is hard for them to hear the other party . Just think what will happen on a plane when they have an even HARDER time hearing the other party.
It's not because it's hard for them to hear the other party. It's because it's hard for them to hear themselves.
Most cell phones, to save battery power, don't send what goes into the microphone back to the speaker's ear. Most land-line phones do. So, people are used to hearing that feedback. When they don't hear their voices through the phone, they talk louder to get the sound volume they're used to. You'd think that by now most cell phone users would be aware of this, but a lot of them aren't.
As noted just above, the major cell phone issue isn't with aircraft electronics (though with new cell phones and avionics coming out all the time it's impossible to be sure that some future combination won't cause a problem). It's that a plane moves so fast, and because of its altitude is in range of so many ground towers at a time, that calls from the air can overload the system.