Ghost in the Phonemachine

April 12, 2009 9:00 PM

The cell phone gives off a staticky, crackly buzzing sound, audible on both sides of the connection. What are some possible causes and solutions?

The buzz is not constantly there, but when it kicks in, it is loud to the point where it is distracting, and it usually sticks around for a long time. The buzzing is in A below middle C. It doesn't seem to make a difference where in the apartment; the buzz has been experienced at a variety of places, even in the middle of nowhere. While one of us is talking, the buzz, if present, will quickly fade off; as soon as there's a silence, the buzz will fill in that silence. And then, suddenly, it will disappear altogether. W, T, F??

posted by not_on_display to technology (4 comments total)

I had a Motorola Razr with a bad ground. How did I end up figuring out it was a bad ground? When I realized that whenever I talked on the phone while standing in water, it would shock the side of my face.
posted by SpecialK at 9:14 PM on April 12, 2009

(It also had the same crackle and pop side effects. Sorry, forgot to mention that. Must have been the years of electroshock therapy to my head.)
posted by SpecialK at 9:15 PM on April 12, 2009

What is a "bad ground," how would I test for one short of shocking my face, and how would/did you go about un-bad-ing the ground?
posted by not_on_display at 11:26 PM on April 12, 2009

This happened to be with my last cellphone (LG Shine) after I was a little too enthusiastic about drinking coffee while on the phone and the itty bitty tiny little flecks of liquid finally amounted to a pretty significant amount of crackle in my microphone. I fixed this by trying to take apart my phone and wipe down the intake area, but then I prompted screwed something up and the phone started hanging up on people pretty much constantly. So if you choose to sort around with your phone, good luck.
posted by banannafish at 5:33 AM on April 13, 2009