FAA warns of 5G interference

I just got this today in my email about radar altimeter interference.

Not clicking Bloomberg

“Introduction
This Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) informs aircraft manufacturers, radio altimeter manufacturers, operators, and pilots of the planned deployment of wireless broadband networks in the 3700-3980 MHz bands, which is scheduled to begin on December 5, 2021 in the 3700-3800 MHz bands. This SAIB recommends that radio altimeter manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, and operators voluntarily provide to federal authorities specific information related to altimeter design and functionality, specifics on deployment and usage of radio altimeters in aircraft, and that they test and assess their equipment in conjunction with federal authorities. Results from that testing and assessment should be reported to the appropriate civil aviation authorities (CAAs) and spectrum regulators. The FAA is currently collaborating with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to assess the need for mitigation beyond the recommended action in this SAIB.
Background
For the past 15 years, the 3 GHz band globally has been the subject of harmonization activity for mobile broadband, both at the International Telecommunication Union and within regional groups. A list of PEAs is available at https://www.fcc.gov/oet/maps/areas).”

Hopefully the FAA will stand aside and let the much more qualified industry analyze and fix anything that actually needs fixing.
 
If you read the “weasel words” the FCC and 5G folks are using it’s a “well designed receiver “. The problem is that all the units were designed years ago, and are still in wide use that assume the frequency outside the radalt band would remain protected.
 
Initial Fix said:
If you read the “weasel words” the FCC and 5G folks are using it’s a “well designed receiver “. The problem is that all the units were designed years ago, and are still in wide use that assume the frequency outside the radalt band would remain protected.
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This will not be the first time that has come up.
 
Reminds me of an issue with cellphones early 2000 time frame. Sikorsky delivered new S76 Charlie aircraft with a new updated baggage fire detector alarm. Any cellphone aboard that was "on" set off the alarm. An epidemic of nuisance alarms caused many precautionary landings. Who could ignore a red light on the panel. Previous baggage alarms among all types in the fleet used a system similar to early household smoke detectors. Never any problems with these. The new alarms likely were used in all new A/C.
 
It's been affecting our Challenger 300 last 4 years. We have been getting erratic RAD ALT readings and gear warnings at a certain approach into KHYA.
 
RyanB said:
What do y’all make of this? I’ve read more than a few articles on the potential side-effects of the 5G infrastructure, but is it really as ‘bad’ as they say?
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"Devices" have an insatiable appetite for spectrum. I spent the last few years of my career in television broadcasting repacking TV transmitters into fewer channels so that the government could auction off half the TV spectrum. Now they are going after half the satellite downlink spectrum. It will not stop until they have it all. The unintended consequences will be enormous.
 
@RyanB Many of the US carriers are turning on their new mid band spectrum in December. The existing roll out has been mostly built on the existing 4G LTE frequencies.
 
RyanB said:
What do y’all make of this? I’ve read more than a few articles on the potential side-effects of the 5G infrastructure, but is it really as ‘bad’ as they say?
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It depends on which rad alt you're using. Some are susceptible to the interference, some aren't.
 
Ted said:
It depends on which rad alt you're using. Some are susceptible to the interference, some aren't.
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Also which vaccine you got. The signal boosts differently depending.

I do wonder how it will affect the chemtrail dispersal systems.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I do wonder how it will affect the chemtrail dispersal systems.
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Chemtrails are certified under a different CFR and aren't impacted.
 
geneseib said:
"Devices" have an insatiable appetite for spectrum. I spent the last few years of my career in television broadcasting repacking TV transmitters into fewer channels so that the government could auction off half the TV spectrum. Now they are going after half the satellite downlink spectrum. It will not stop until they have it all. The unintended consequences will be enormous.
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I think you're absolutely right. And all that bandwidth is to watch higher resolution videos of nothing of any interest the next day. We need a way to point the eco people to the goal of fewer bits, slower cpu's, reduced bandwidth and less memory to save the planet, as part of all the noise about carbon footprint. And figure out how to get the product lifecycles of this crap from 2 months to 5 years. But I'm dreaming, people are slow, short sighted and greedy.
 
RyanB said:
Where? It’s been live in most parts of the US for awhile.
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“… the planned deployment of wireless broadband networks in the 3700-3980 MHz bands, which is scheduled to begin on December 5, 2021 …”.

That’s from upthread, regarding the FAA Bulletin.

It seems there are many different chunks of the spectrum that can be used by 5G, and they didn’t all become available at the same time.
 
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Initial Fix said:
The 5G band doesn’t go live until December 2021. You could be getting another spurious signal that is splattering the band. You can always try filing an FCC complaint as it’s a safety concern. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/filing-informal-complaint
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We were told it was a testing sight. We looked into the FCC rout but at the time it was Pai in charge and he leaned in favor of companies like Verizon since that's where he came from.
I hope it will end up like LightSquared that was forced to shut down due to GPS interference.
 
Some of the GA aircraft like the Piper M600 use the radar altimeter as part of the autoland system. Although the system has the capability to still autoland with some degraded systems per the POH. Not sure what losing or corrupting the radar altimeter might do. Maybe the landings would be as bad as my normal landings. ;-)
 
Without the radar altimeter airbuses won't be able to malign the pilots on landing (50, 40, 30, 20, RETARD! RETARD!)
 
Good to see the RTCA report was made more public
 
I thought most of 5G was in the millimeter wave spectrum. Didn’t know Verizon got a chunk of the sub 6Ghz band until I saw this.

it’s a shame the FCC and th FAA can’t play nice together!
 
edessa said:
We were told it was a testing sight. We looked into the FCC rout but at the time it was Pai in charge and he leaned in favor of companies like Verizon since that's where he came from.
I hope it will end up like LightSquared that was forced to shut down due to GPS interference.
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Sorry, but Lightsquared is back with a different name and it got the spectrum against DOD and every other Fed organization arguments.Any further comment gets me banned,
 
murphey said:
Lightsquared is back with a different name and it got the spectrum
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Not relevant to this thread.

This thread is about a 3.7 to 3.98 GHz chunk of spectrum for 5G which is close to the 4.2 - 4.4 GHz used for radar altimeters.

Ligand (formerly Lightsquared) controls some spectrum in 1.5-1.6 GHz, which is nowhere close to the spectrum for radar altimeters. GPS is the issue for Ligand.
 
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