TECHNOLOGY: HELLO?! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?!?

POLARIZED GLASS

Its a problem we've come to take for granted it ill keep happening maybe two or three times a week.

What problem?....
Bad cellular reception on our cellphones, tablets or smartphone equipment.

But why? Is that the networks are all over-subscribed? Or is it all to be blamed on the surge in solar flare activity in the 11 year cycle? Hardly.

Electricity has inductive properties, an electric charge that moves and cause other nearby cables to become charged if the flow and charge is strong enough. This property is used in generators to spin coils to generate electricity.

Consequently as power is delivered around our communities in overhead power lines the air too can become charged with power that if not taken care of properly can leak into sensitive communication equipment. Sadly some of the earthing equipment can fail to meet our needs when cosmic activity raises above normal thresholds and sends higher states of energy down to the earth in the form of solar irradiation from Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) from the sun that hit earth's atmosphere.

I've often had friends complain about connectivity issues at home and gone to use online resources to check what is going on in space only to find out nothing is happening. on arriving at their location i spot conditions that don't work well in their favor. Things such as faulty microwaves, high voltage equipment, thick concrete walls with iron rods in them and the worst of all polarised glass. What!? Yes!

These are obstacles to radio signals which act in a way to not only absorb and interfere with radio signals but unintentionally, in the case of the polarised glass in businesses. The polarisation is meant to protect the interior from UV rays by converting light waves (of energy) into harmless heat energy while letting some light through. 

This works by twisting the light energy and absorbing (photochromic - light based reaction) some bands of light energy on select spectrum bands. Such as in sunglasses where the glare is neutralized by blocking the vertical (magnetic) components of light. In communication technologies it can cause a loss of information quality carried by radio waves, attenuation. These effects can be impacted by the temperature of the surrounding area as well. With sunglasses sometimes worn for fashionable or medical reasons the photochromic properties can take longer to be effective in protecting the wearer from UV rays the warmer it is. With electricity the warmer the air is the easier it is for interference to impact the radio quality of signals being transmitted through the air.

 

(Radio blackout indicator graph showing signal disruption; Source NOAA/SWPC)

Just imagine the warm ground of roads radiating the heat back into the air from the sun making it harder for cell phones to communicate with cellular towers as well as the electronic noise from overhear powers lines competing with towers as well. Now imagine the stress of the telecom companies' towers responding to all the cellphones trying harder to send their signals to towers as well. This makes for a chaotic environment.

Perhaps the next time you feel your cellular network is cheating you on the quality of the services you are expecting you may want to check on some of these things in the environment where you are. Dropped calls? Chances are going outside to make that important call or waiting to get to a place you know things work well to try again would be best for you. 4G technologies are being deployed which operate at higher frequencies that can overcome some of the problems the lower frequencies suffer from.

@AfricanWombat

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