iPhone Tip: Reduce iPhone’s GSM Buzz with Dock Extender Cable

BY Jason

Published 19 Apr 2008

If you are frustrated with the GSM interference from your iPhone when its near a pair of speakers and the iPhone tips mentioned here have not helped fix the buzzing sound then here is another solution which you could check out.

I found some good explanation for the buzzing noise observed with GSM phones from none other then
Nokia’s spokesperson Keith Nowak. This is what he had to say:

"With GSM, the RF transmitter is turned on/off at a fast rate, and that ‘pulsing’ is often picked up by nearby devices that don’t have good RF shielding. In the case of GSM the pulse rate is 217 Hz, which can be easily heard."

CDMA phones don’t have this buzzing sound because their transmitter is on most of the time, according to Nowak. As a result, the pulsing effect generally doesn’t occur.

"The interference to other devices is worse the further the phone is from the cellular tower," Nowak continued. "This is because the network requires the phone to transmit at a higher level the further away it is from the tower. In addition, the interference to a device will be worse the closer the phone is to the device being interfered with."

So one of the solutions to reduce the interference and thus reduce the GSM buzz is to keep the iPhone as far away from the speakers.

RadTech’s iPhone Dock Extender which is a Apple Dock 30-pin Male to 30-pin Female cable does just that by extending the iPhone two feet (64cm) away from the speaker.

RadTech offers the iPhone Dock Extender for US$39.95, so if the buzzing sound is driving you insane then its a price you could consider shelling out. Product page. You could also consider the pricier Custom Dock Extender cable from CableJive which costs $65 with an additional $4 for an extra foot of cable.

If you have a better solution to combat iPhone’s GSM buzz, please do share it in the comments.

 

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