Skip to main content

Kids Projects at Home

Simple Kids Crafts is a video blog dedicated to reviving the old art of handicrafts for people of all ages. How do oil spills affect aquatic plants? A Miniature Solar Panel Fire Water Balloon Make Clouds in a Bottle Secret Messages Make a Rocket Make a Hovercraft Make an Anemometer Make a Sundial Make a Radio Make an Electroscope Make a Stethoscope Make a Telescope Make a Periscope Make a Camera Bending a stream of water with a comb Lighting a bulb without electricity Simple Motor Cotton Ball Rocks? Salt-Absorbing Art and Science Color Changing Glue Art Baking Soda Clay Oil Sun Catcher Grow a Pineapple Plant! Bead Bowls Wow, what an Air-Gun Funny Diver ! Water boils without fire Ice with Boiling Water Water that boils instantly Water boils in a Paper Pot Soap-driven Boat Pulse Moves Pin Pretty Garden—without Plants Picture made by Fire Magic Pictures Dancing Doll Smoke Goes Down The Dancing Coupl The Umbrella Dance Magic Butterfly Colorful ...

Cell Phone Jammer


Inside a Cell-phone Jammer

Electronically speaking, cell-phone jammers are very basic devices. The simplest just have an on/off switch and a light that indicates it's on. More complex devices have switches to activate jamming at different frequencies. Components of a jammer include:

Antenna

Every jamming device has an antenna to send the signal. Some are contained within an electrical cabinet. On stronger devices, antennas are external to provide longer range and may be tuned for individual frequencies.

Circuitry

The main electronic components of a jammer are:
Voltage-controlled oscillator - Generates the radio signal that will interfere with the cell phone signal
Tuning circuit - Controls the frequency at which the jammer broadcasts its signal by sending a particular voltage to the oscillator
Noise generator - Produces random electronic output in a specified frequency range to jam the cell-phone network signal (part of the tuning circuit)
RF amplification (gain stage) - Boosts the power of the radio frequency output to high enough levels to jam a signal

Power supply

Smaller jamming devices are battery operated. Some look like cell phone and use cell-phone batteries. Stronger devices can be plugged into a standard outlet or wired into a vehicle's electrical system.

Alternatives to Jamming

While the law clearly prohibits using a device to actively disrupt a cell-phone signal, there are no rules against passive cell-phone blocking. That means using things like wallpaper or building materials embedded with metal fragments to prevent cell-phone signals from reaching inside or outside the room. Some buildings have designs that block radio signals by accident due to thick concrete walls or a steel skeleton.

Companies are working on devices that control a cell phone but do not "jam the signal." One device sends incoming calls to voicemail and blocks outgoing calls. The argument is that the phone still works, so it is technically not being jammed. It is a legal gray area that has not been ruled on by the FCC as of April 2005.
Cell-phone alerters are available that indicate the presence of a cell-phone signal. These have been used in hospitals where cell-phone signals could interfere with sensitive medical equipment. When a signal is detected, users are asked to turn off their phones.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Grow a Gummy Bear

This is a neat and easy science project for younger children. All you need is a package of gummy bears, some small see-through containers, water, and a marker. The time frame for this project can vary depending on how much time your child is given for the project. The project can be done in as little as a week (7 days) or it can be stretched out over a couple of months. Here are the basics: Take the small containers and the marker. Label the containers for the number of days your child is going to do the project. (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc.) I recommend empty baby food jars with lids since the day can be written on the lid. Fill the containers about half full of water – cold or room temperature, not hot. For each day of the project, drop a single gummy bear into one jar and close the lid. I sorted my gummies by color, but this is optional.) Store containers in a cool space so that the water in the container does not get too warm and melt the gummy bear. (I stored the...

Fooling Your Brain with a Mirror

Aim: To prove that what we see is often affected by what we expect to see with the help of the mirror image experiment. Materials required: 1. Mirrors – 2 in number, square in shape, 12 inches (30 cm) a side, could be either made out of plastic or glass. 2. Epoxy glue and duct tapes. 3. Wooden dowels – 2 in number with diameter as 1 inch (2.5 cm) and 12 inches (30 cm) long. Procedure: 1.      Stick the mirrors together by pasting their backs. If you have a glass mirror then for safety, tape their edges using the duct tapes to seal the sharp edges. Take the two wooden dowels and paste them right in the centre of the mirrors vertically. 2.      Hold the dowels with each hand and as you look at one side of the mirror move the hand which is on the other side. What do you actually see? What happens? Your brain expects the image in the mirror to move as it is fooled to believe that the image it sees is actually your othe...

The Mathematics of Sympathetic Vibrations

Objectives/Goals  Which notes on a piano can induce sympathetic vibrations on an open string? Mathematical relationships between test note and open string frequencies will be used to predict which notes cause sympathetic vibrations. I predict the three test notes in my sample that are harmonics of the open string will resonate the longest. Methods/Materials  Materials used were: a piano, a stopwatch, a frequency chart, and a helper. I depressed a piano key, the damper lifted and the string was "open," or free to vibrate. I played all the notes in one octave higher than the open string. My helper timed the durations of the tone coming from the open string. I averaged and graphed the results.  Results  The thirteen test keys in each sample caused the open string to resonate. Seven test keys caused brief resonance; the vibration inside the sound box caused the open strings to produce a tone.  Three test keys produced tones of intermedi...