GSM-noise "buzz" issue
Joerg Reisenweber
joerg at openmoko.org
Mon Sep 29 20:34:32 CEST 2008
Am Mo 29. September 2008 schrieb Andy Green:
> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
>
> | Got around to try it just today.
> | The problem for me with testing is that I (too) have a pretty good
> | signal where I life (Actually orignating about 300m away ;) ), so that
> | if there is buzz it is relatively silent.
> | To reproduce it reliably I just went into the cellar and did a longer
> | test call. Interestingly the buzz was sometimes pretty loud and
> | sometimes hardly present which did not seem to coincide with the signal
> | strength. Actually once I noticed the buzz getting louder when the
> | signal got stronger oO. What I annoyingly had all the time was a pretty
> | loud echo though :(.
>
> I know what you mean about it coming and going, seemingly disconnected
> from what you are doing to the phone.
>
> I was looking at the VB_SYS rail during the buzz time a couple of months
> ago, it seemed to me the buzz came and went according to what I saw on
> VB_SYS. But this was an A5 revision.
I will include this to my mail signature:
Buzz obviously is related to TRANSMIT-power of mobile. Transmit power is
remote controlled by the base station, so the signal BS is receiving meets
BS' "taste". There is *no* direct relation between RECEIVE-signal strength as
reported by signal meter on mobile, and the way BS decides to set he TX-power
of mobile to.
Obvious example: when very remote of a strong BS, you might see good signal
strength, but transmitter of mobile has to power up to the limit. When close
to a BS of a small cell (usual situation in urban areas), you might see weak
signal strength, but nevertheless mobile needs low tx-power to reach the
nearby BS.
Then when BS sees some bad noise spoiling the signal from your phone, BS will
decide to level up TX-power of your phone, and buzz increases without any
change at all in your test setup.
That's also the reason why replacing original antenna with a "piece of wire"
doesn't really change buzz situation: BS is leveling TX-power so
the "reduced" TX-RF-field is attenuated to be same as before, though
transmitter-amp is burning more power to achieve this identical TX-strength -
so this "wire-antenna-test" actually is a proof for OTA-injection of buzz, as
it has to yield *more* buzz if it was by internal coupling via RF or DC.
It's difficult to test in real live, you absolutely can't control the setup.
>
> | As for the shorted plug: If there is buzz it amplifies it a tiny bit, if
> | there is no buzz it doesn't seem to induce buzz, but it definitely does
> | not seem to make things better.
>
> At high frequencies "shorts" with some loop area don't necessarily have
> that low an impedence.
>
> What did you actually short to what, everything to the 0V pin really?
The most easy way to short it is to use a copper wire of correct diameter and
insert that instead of a plug (don't push it in too far ;-) ).
I don't expect this will yield a good result, as our tests to short
JK4401:pin6 to GND internally also didn't help. Be aware: this isn't exactly
GND plane, but in fact one half of the antenna dipole. RF isn't only at
antenna, but spreads all over the device electrical surface.
cheers
jOERG
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 194 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/hardware/attachments/20080929/69a2799e/attachment.pgp
More information about the hardware
mailing list