Truthers - Let's talk U93 phone calls

[little grey rabbit]

Tom Burnett is another rather "problematic" phone call

During one of Tom Burnett's calls, his wife informed him of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane ... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission."

Oh really? The hijackers were telling the passengers that? What happened to Attta's strategy "Just sit calm in your seats and nothing will happen to you." Does Tom Burnett speak Arabic.

So the question is was Tom Burnett's wife faithfully relaying a prank call from her husband or was she lying herself?

 

[newton3376]

Well, I have never managed to pick up a signal with my phone except just prior to touchdown - and for the life of me I can't why telcos would engineer capacity at 30000 feet.

1. It doesn't matter that you have never managed.....others have.

2. The Network is not "designed" or "engineered" to work at 30,000 feet....it simply can because of the physics of RF signals. The signals, even with directional antennas, spread out in space.

If I wanted to I could find an equally technical argument that says it can't happen, but I am happy with my empirical experience.

Actually....no....you can't find an equally technical argument. The closest I have ever seen was from a "truther" who was a technician in the wireless industry and wrote some obscure internet paper on it.

The paper does not show any actual reasons why it can't work....it simply says it can't. As I said before...even a "back of the envelope" calculation using the Friis equation will tell you that enough power will reach the tower from the phone and the phone from the tower to work. How much power? Well that depends on the specific situation....it also depends on the sensitivity of the phone and the tower in question.

The actual real life simulations that calculate a "real world" answer for this have been done by those in the industry....and the majority of them agree that it is possible for it to connect.

So, no, you won't be able to find a technical argument proving it is not possible to make a cellular call at altitude.

Wading through miles of Newton's verbiage we find this

"Verbiage"?

A.K.A "an actual argument that little grey rabbit can't refute".

Which calls exactly?
For example


Why can't we just migrate all calls to Airfones like we did with Jeremy Glick, get rid of this cell phone at cruising altitude nonsense.

So again, what calls precisely do you think were from a cell phone?

There were two listed that were believed to be cellular phone calls......the quote you used from 911myths.com mentions one as you can see.

As I said....some "appear" to be from cell phones.

Are we 100% sure that they were? Nope.

Do I believe that they were? Sure.

Does it matter if they weren't from cell phones? Not in the slightest.

So if you want to take me to task for believing the two were from cell phones.....have at it.....it doesn't matter at all. Because whether they were from cell phones or are shown that they can equally be attributed to seat back phones IT DOESN'T MATTER.

The fact remains.....YOU ARE WRONG....that it is impossible to make cellular phone calls from altitude.

Like many things in life...it is not as clear cut as "yes" or "no".....the answer to the cell phone calls being possible is "yes it is possible".

The answer to whether or not you will be able to connect in a specific situation is "it depends on several factors."

 

[twinstead]

Tom Burnett is another rather "problematic" phone call



Oh really? The hijackers were telling the passengers that? What happened to Attta's strategy "Just sit calm in your seats and nothing will happen to you." Does Tom Burnett speak Arabic.

So the question is was Tom Burnett's wife faithfully relaying a prank call from her husband or was she lying herself?

No, the question is why do you not include the fact that it was his wife who told him that they were suicide missions?

Deena: Hello
Tom: They’re in the cockpit. The guy they knifed is dead.
Deena: He’s dead?
Tom: Yes. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t get a pulse.
Deena: Tom, they are hijacking planes all up and down the east coast. They are taking them and hitting designated targets. They’ve already hit both towers of the World Trade Center.
Tom: They’re talking about crashing this plane. (a pause) Oh my God. It’s a suicide mission…(he then tells people sitting around him)
Deena: Who are you talking to?
Tom: My seatmate. Do you know which airline is involved?
Deena: No, they don’t know if they’re commercial airlines or not. The newsreporters are speculating cargo planes, private planes and commercial. No one knows.
Tom: How many planes are there?
Deena: They’re not sure, at least three. Maybe more.
Tom: O.K….O.K….Do you know who is involved?
Deena: No.
Tom: We’re turning back toward New York. We’re going back to the World Trade Center. No, wait, we’re turning back the other way. We’re going south.
Deena: What do you see?
Tom: Just a minute, I’m looking. I don’t see anything, we’re over a rural area. It’s just fields. I’ve gotta go.
He hung up.

So. You've accused Deena of lying. Nice. You're a real gentlemen. Also, you've accused somebody of making up these transcripts. Wow. A lot of evil minions out there, huh?

 

[little grey rabbit]

No, the question is why do you not include the fact that it was his wife who told him that there suicide missions?

Took it straight from wikipedia old chum, but nothing you have posted suggests that they were incorrect.

So. You've accused Deena of lying. Nice. You're a real gentlemen.

No I didn't. I said she might have been an innocent dupe or she might have lying. I was hoping you would know.

 

[little grey rabbit]

1. It doesn't matter that you have never managed.....others have.

2. The Network is not "designed" or "engineered" to work at 30,000 feet....it simply can because of the physics of RF signals. The signals, even with directional antennas, spread out in space.



Actually....no....you can't find an equally technical argument. The closest I have ever seen was from a "truther" who was a technician in the wireless industry and wrote some obscure internet paper on it.

The paper does not show any actual reasons why it can't work....it simply says it can't. As I said before...even a "back of the envelope" calculation using the Friis equation will tell you that enough power will reach the tower from the phone and the phone from the tower to work. How much power? Well that depends on the specific situation....it also depends on the sensitivity of the phone and the tower in question.

The actual real life simulations that calculate a "real world" answer for this have been done by those in the industry....and the majority of them agree that it is possible for it to connect.

So, no, you won't be able to find a technical argument proving it is not possible to make a cellular call at altitude.



"Verbiage"?

A.K.A "an actual argument that little grey rabbit can't refute".




There were two listed that were believed to be cellular phone calls......the quote you used from 911myths.com mentions one as you can see.

As I said....some "appear" to be from cell phones.

Are we 100% sure that they were? Nope.

Do I believe that they were? Sure.

Does it matter if they weren't from cell phones? Not in the slightest.

So if you want to take me to task for believing the two were from cell phones.....have at it.....it doesn't matter at all. Because whether they were from cell phones or are shown that they can equally be attributed to seat back phones IT DOESN'T MATTER.

The fact remains.....YOU ARE WRONG....that it is impossible to make cellular phone calls from altitude.

Like many things in life...it is not as clear cut as "yes" or "no".....the answer to the cell phone calls being possible is "yes it is possible".

The answer to whether or not you will be able to connect in a specific situation is "it depends on several factors."

Leaving aside your delusional attempts to "prove" cell phones will give coverage at any altitude except just prior to touch-down...

Can you be more specific. Which calls do you think were most likely from cell phones?

 

[twinstead]

Took it straight from wikipedia old chum, but nothing you have posted suggests that they were incorrect.

And nothing you have posted suggests that any of it was faked. Please provide something other than simple incredulity.

No I didn't. I said she might have been an innocent dupe or she might have lying. I was hoping you would know.

False dichotomy. She also might be telling the truth, and you are totally wrong. Pardon me if I'm dubious of your "take" on the subject.

 

[Sabrina]

"took it straight from Wikipedia"?

Right... the encyclopedia that literally anyone can edit is such a definitive source after all...

 

[newton3376]

Leaving aside your delusional attempts to "prove" cell phones will give coverage at any altitude except just prior to touch-down...

Show me where I said they will give coverage at "any" altitude?

Show me where I said they will not give coverage "just prior to touch-down"?

Show me where I said those things or I will have to conclude you are either a liar or a complete moron who lacks reading comprehension skills.

Can you be more specific. Which calls do you think were most likely from cell phones?

I forgot about the one right after the Airfone call from Tom Burnett to Deena Burnett....

So here are three I believe were cell phone calls:

Tom to Deena at 9:27 am and 9:45 am.

Edward Felt at 9:58.

There ya go....three that I believe were cellular phone calls. I'm not sure about the others....I'm not even 100% certain on these although the caller ID comment from Deena seems to pretty much make it very likely it was a cell phone.

Again.....even if these are not cell phone calls and are from Airfones....

YOU ARE STILL WRONG ABOUT THE CELL PHONES

 

[sheeplesnshills]

Ok my belief is that some of the calls may have been real, and some (as with Ceecee Lyles were fake) For the one's that are real, the general theory goes like this:

"A self-powered cell phone repeater the size of a shoe box is placed on board Flight 93 within a piece of luggage. The repeater is sufficiently powerful to establish reliable connections with ground stations for several minutes at a time, and forwards all the communications between the cell phones aboard the plane and ground stations. The repeater is programmed to broadcast on a separate encrypted channel a duplicate of all the call data in real time, which is monitored by operatives who have ability to block any of the calls at any time. "

To me this is the most straight forward approach, that enable the operatives to still have control of the situation.

I would say hijackings are real (to get these calls CVR...etc), planes are remotely taken over and flown to destinations. Of course there would have to be some work done on the ground to allow remote control possible. At this time they could be landed and drones sent off (this scenario wouldn't necessary require remote control of course), or obviously just flown into the buildings.

These are probably the best scenarios for 93, 11, and 175. 77 (the one that hit the pentagon) is a different matter in my opinion, but do not want to get into that now.

Why bother when both air phones and cell phones work on planes?

Please show that its possible to build a cell phone repeater with batteries etc into a shoebox sized box and next that it would work inside the hold any better than a cell phone will in the cabin............list all assumptions made and show working.

 

[sylvan8798]

I'm not sure what a "Jesuitical waffle" even is....sounds like a personal problem you should get looked at.....

It's a waffle with nothing on it. Jesuits take a vow of poverty - no butter or syrup there.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

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[sylvan8798]

newton, how close together are the cell towers typically, say in a fairly flat, low population, area?

 

[newton3376]

newton, how close together are the cell towers typically, say in a fairly flat, low population, area?

I would guess that the maximum it should be is about 20 miles....based on limitations of the handset.

So the limiting factor for the maximum distance should be the handset since it is a low power transmitter compared to what a tower can output.

Also.....I think there is a difference between the "spread spectrum" technologies like CDMA (Verizons Network) and the non spread spectrum like the GSM network (I think AT&T) uses GSM....

As for how close they are typically.....that I am not sure about....

But I'll go do some reading and post again...

 

[Craig4]

So, any evidence from the truthers that the phone calls were faked yet?

 

[twinstead]

So, any evidence from the truthers that the phone calls were faked yet?

Apparently, incredulity is enough.

 

[newton3376]

newton, how close together are the cell towers typically, say in a fairly flat, low population, area?

Okay after some quick reading....

AT&T is definately GSM.

And the CDMA signal....which is a type of spread spectrum....can go further than GSM....that makes sense from a signals point of view...so far so good.


My "off the cuff" answer of 20 miles might not be completely correct...

According to Wikipedia...

GSM is limited by a "timing" issue (this makes sense because of the type of signal GSM is) to approximately 22 miles for max tower distance while the CDMA is basically limited to approximately 30-45 miles because of the handset (also makes sense since CDMA should be able to go further in theory since it is an "SS" technology).


Checking a few different sources on the above info tells me it passes the smell test...the wikipedia article on this issue so far seems pretty good.


As far as what the typical spacing would be....I'm not sure....that gets into the Network topology of tower placement and I'm not sure what the standard is. I'll keep searching though....

 

[sylvan8798]

I'm wondering, even with the directional sense of the signals, and the spacing issues, how much theoretical area coverage you would have at 30,000 feet, which is only approx 6 miles up. It seems like one could approximate a percentage - for example assuming a spherical cow (signal) and that you had to be within 10 miles of a tower for a decent signal, at 6 miles elevation wouldn't that amount to approximately 50% area coverage? Not sure if I'm looking at this right.

 

[newton3376]

I'm wondering, even with the directional sense of the signals, and the spacing issues, how much theoretical area coverage you would have at 30,000 feet, which is only approx 6 miles up. It seems like one could approximate a percentage - for example assuming a spherical cow (signal) and that you had to be within 10 miles of a tower for a decent signal, at 6 miles elevation wouldn't that amount to approximately 50% area coverage? Not sure if I'm looking at this right.

I think I know what you saying here...

You can look at a 2 dimensional "ellipse" or circle for the towers that would be "covered" at a certain altitude.

A rough calculation would be to use the Friis equation and simply use distance...putting the cell phone in the "center" of a sphere representing the radiated power levels and seeing how many towers fall within a certain power level. You can then do the reverse for the tower to cell link.

But this is just using the straight up power/distance equations and is a simplified method....you would still need to know or approximate some basic characteristics for the cell phone and the towers (antenna gain for example) but it could be done to get rough numbers for a line of sight calculation.

Now...if you wanted to get a true two dimensional projection or "shadow" of the signal coming off of the cell phone....this would be more complicated.

You would have to include the interactions of the body of the plane for one and get a true picture of what the signal looks like.....I would guess that there would likely be a "null" directly beneath the plane, as far as the towers are concerned, because of the attack angle of the signal.

Developing this "footprint" can actually be a complicated process and is something done for things like synthetic aperature radar systems....

Maybe I'll run through some rough numbers this week and see what I can come up with if I get time....

 

[USAFMXOfficer]

Please provide evidence that a cell phone will work at cruising altitude. I've left my phone on during takeoff and witnessed the lost signal far before reaching cruising altitude, not very long after takeoff. Was technology better in 2001?

Who cares about cell phones at altitude?

The 2 cell calls made from U93 were made from an altitude of 5,000 feet.

 

[little grey rabbit]

Who cares about cell phones at altitude?

The 2 cell calls made from U93 were made from an altitude of 5,000 feet.

Which 2 cell calls precisely are you talking about? Can you be more specific?

On a website of something called the "Tom Burnett Family Foundation" (feel free to donate...)
They provide what they say are transcripts of the phonecalls
http://www.tomburnettfoundation.org/tomburnett_transcript.html
They say the first phone call was 9:27. Still at altitude I believe and impossible from a cell phone.

Are we saying that Tom Burnett started with an airfone and then switched to a cell phone when the altitude lowered?

So why do we believe Tom Burnett rang on a cell phone again?