Solar Microwaves don't mean a damn, and neither does the background
microwaves. When cell phones stop operating you'll know there are
extra microwaves more than the kind there has been for billions of
years. ANOTHER RED HERRING.


http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ne_020306.html

Next time your cell phone drops a call, don't rush to blame your
service provider. The culprit may well be an angry Sun.


A new study of 40 years of solar data shows that during peaks in
activity, bursts of energy from the Sun can potentially cause dropped
calls for some cell phone users across wide areas twice per week. The
problem is caused when radio waves associated with the bursts hit cell
phone towers, creating static that overwhelms the signal at the tower,
where calls are relayed.


The result, for you, may often be sudden silence.


These flashes of radio energy arrive at the speed of light, roughly 8
minutes from the Sun to Earth.


"There's absolutely no warning," said Dale Gary, a physicist at New
Jersey Institute of Technology and leader of the study.


Confusion


In a telephone interview, Gary explained that the problem has to do
mostly with the fact that cell phone towers need to face the horizon
in order to communicate with users and other towers.Those that face
east or west look directly into the Sun at sunrise or sunset.If a
burst occurs then, the tower sustains a direct hit and is unable to
sort out wireless calls from unwanted signals.


Which, for commuters, could mean isolation during drive-time. The
events can last anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours.


"If you have poor service normally, you'll have worse service when
there's an event like this going on," Gary said, adding that there is
no way for you to know if your calls are cut off due to spotty service
or an solar event.


Gary and his colleagues studied four decades of solar data provided by
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A paper on their
work will be published March 7 in the journal Radio Science, published
by the American Geophysical Union.


The Sun's activity runs in roughly 11-year cycles, and the study
covered four peaks in this cycle. During peaks, the Sun has more
sunspots and spits out more hot gas in the form of solar flares and
coronal mass ejections, along with the increased radio emissions.


The researchers found that, on average, bursts powerful enough to
disrupt wireless communications occur 10-20times per year.


Or maybe more


In a follow-up study that has yet to be published, however, Gary and
his colleagues looked deeper into the data and found hints of more
events that were missed by an evolving monitoring system that dates
back to 1960. Gary said the newer study shows that during peaks of
solar activity, when bursts are much more likely, potentially
disruptive radio spikes can strike every 3.5 days. During the years-
long lullsin the solar cycle, as many as one disruption every 18.5
days might occur.

The most recent peak in the solar cycle -- a stretch of time that
actually last for months -- occurred in July 200, but NASA scientists
say a second peak surprisingly cropped up in recent months.

Gary said there's little chance of solving the problem soon. Future
reception might be improved, though. Towers could be positioned to
point anywhere but east and west, he said. And cellphones might be
designed to handle higher levels of noise. But that means making them
more powerful, raising possible health concerns.

The research team also included Louis Lanzerotti of Lucent
Technologies' Bell Labs, along with Bala Balachandran and David
Thomson, who were at Bell Labs when the research was done.