Cell Phones and Pickups

[Cream Fan]

Here's a question: How many of you where your cell phones on your belt while playing your guitars sitting down? Now, aside from any interference issues, do we need to worry about slowly degaussing our pickups? I take it off if I'm standing and wearing a strap, but not if I'm sitting down. SGs are the exception because the bodies are so thin, I get noise from the phone. Interested to see what someone in the know might think.

 

[Smolder]

Never wear my phone on my belt and never sit down to play electric. If my phone is on my while playing, it is in my front pocket and I have never had any interference... strat, lp, sg or other.

 

[RamiLP]

it depends on what brand of cell phone you are using, its usually the phone is actually interfearing with the amp speakers not the guitar itself.

 

[led zep fan]

My bass player's i-Phone constantly intreferes with everything! Both guitars, his bass, the PA...... stupid thing!

 

[Esmiralha]

Never wear a cell phone in my belt. Period.

I never perceived interference from cell phones except when I get a call. That makes amps hum and CRT monitors ripple.

 

[RickN]

... do we need to worry about slowly degaussing our pickups?

Nah. A simple electrical signal won't cause a magnet to degauss. What causes that is the presence of another magnetic field, and it's gotta be BIG. Cell phones don't put out that kind of signal, and certainly not one big enough to cause any problems with a pickup magnet. Now, set the guitar next to an old TV or the power transformer of a nice big 100w amp? Different story. And even then, it would take an extended amount of time for it to degauss a pickup magnet enough for you to notice.

But cell phones? They don't put out a big magnetic field. The health and environmental industry wouldn't let devices like that exist in the market anyway. Can you imagine the repercussions on your health of having a big magnetic field up next to your ear for extended periods of time? There are strict controls on how much 'emissions' an electronic device is allowed to put into the environment. It's part of the reason cell phone technology migrated from analog to digital several years ago. Fewer and different kinds of 'emissions'.

Your cell phone won't degauss your pickup magnet. And if it's got enough other emissions that it interferes with your pickups sonically, I'd say to go get a new one, because the one you have is defective.

My $.02 :salude

 

[jwalker]

You are not supposed to place a cell phone near a pacemaker.

You are supposed to stay 10 feet away from my 30lb magnet charger if you have a pacemaker.

If your cell phone was sitting on top of your pickup maybe it would have an effect?

Magnetic fields are a byproduct of any electrical current. It's called EMF radiation and it's measured with a gauss meter.

 

[sixty2strat]

Have a Toy shop that sells toys expensive toys ( more for adults with issues) and the owner remodeled the shop below himself. Since that happened my strats are unplayable from the hum and an LP just gets by. No idea what causes this sudden change but as soon as he is gone and the shop closed no problem. Figured it was a lighting fixture but saw no new ones. But I heard that he had a wireless connection put in. might that be the root of the problem. Our realtionship is shitty and before I go to the landlord what to get some idea of the cause

 

[Black58]

When I'm playin' out or rehearsing, the phone stays out in the car. The rest 'o the world can kiss my ass, I'm busy! :laugh2:

 

[mingus]

My bass player's i-Phone constantly intreferes with everything! Both guitars, his bass, the PA...... stupid thing!

Yup. The i-phone is pretty bad. The other guitar player in my band has one and the damn thing is always checking in with the mother ship and creating a strange static-like sound when in close proximity to his Strat.

 

[TM1]

I have a nice old Ampex bulk Tape Eraser if you want to degauss some magnets.. My iPhone hasn't caused any problems with my guitars or amps...

 

[Don]

I put my cell phone on top of my amp one night while playing and it occasionally made noises through the amp's speaker! Not the phone ringing, but it was searching for a signal or something.

 

[jrgtr42]

I wear my cell way on the left side of my belt. I don't wear it when I'm at home - playing my own guitars.
If I'm out, say at the local shop, i do have it on, but it's nowhere near the guitar.
Never had any instance of the cell causing any noise through the guitar. Changing channels on my TV, that's a different story...I get some cool sounds that way.

 

[Pearly Grapes]

Cell phones are The Devil!! :fu
PG