CODEWITHSUNDEEP
mobilemobile-phonesradio-transmission
Antony Carthy
Antony Carthy

Reputation: 5595

Mobile phone - can it programatically broadcast at a radio frequency?

Is it possible to make a cell phone transmit arbitrary radio waves at a certain frequency? Or does the Mobile OS only allow higher level access?

If the answer is 'no' as I expect it is, is there any way to make a phone talk to another electronic device remotely without handshakes and the like?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 19417

Answers (7)

Phyllis Mitchell
Phyllis Mitchell

Reputation: 1

One should look into the "trusted credentials" part of the cell phones. Turning off certain ones minimizes the emf radiations filtered by the government, especially on government phones.

Upvotes: 0

Puzzler
Puzzler

Reputation: 1

Why not utilize the processors? They are essentially just conductors, as are antennas...

A clever coder could make a "digital" antenna...😕 maybe?

Upvotes: 0

fortran
fortran

Reputation: 76107

A practical answer, without involving any knowledge of physics:

If you could do that, adding a new band to a mobile device would be simply a matter of updating the OS/firmware... and it seems a little bit more complicated than that.

Upvotes: 0

embdeddCoder
embdeddCoder

Reputation:

The question is general, so the answer is going to be vague as well.

You can't do that in mobile phones, the hardware is usually designed for a certain frequency band, which means that the Antenna, Power Amplifier and the Oscillators may not be able to transmit outside that range.

Upvotes: 2

Callie J
Callie J

Reputation: 31316

Probably not - as EFraim indicated, there'll be regulatory frameworks in place to say that devices of type A must use frequencies in the range X-Z with no more than a certain power output.

Additionally there's physical issues as well as to be able to broadcast at different frequencies requires different length antennas, certainly if you wanted to broadcast in the UHF range, the length of antenna would be radically different to the microwave-range that mobiles use (2.4GHz). Failing to match the antenna to the frequency can produce all sorts of odd effects that can destroy the output circuit.

Thus the only items available are going to be those that the phone itself presents - namely bluetooth and infra-red (if it exists). Some phones also have WiFi as well, so it really depends what you actually need this for.

Upvotes: 5

EFraim
EFraim

Reputation: 13038

There are pretty strict regulations on what frequencies mobile devices can use. The firmware will therefor block almost all possible accesses. (Let alone the fact that it won't be exposed in an API)

But there are plenty of more suitable solutions for short-rage contact - IR and bluetooth.

Upvotes: 2

cjk
cjk

Reputation: 46475

Generally, the hardware won't support this kind of operation.

Upvotes: 1

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