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GSA / Crowdsource-Testing-NOAA-CrowdMag

Issues reported for the for the NOAA-CrowdMag Android application compatibility test-cycle 8/2014.
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Signal "flatlines" when phone is plugged in to charge. #8

Open DKScholz opened 10 years ago

DKScholz commented 10 years ago

It appears that when I charge my phone at night, the signal flatlines to its lowest reading over all the testing period. I leave the phone on so it continues to record, so it's not because the phone is powered down.

Anyone else's phone do this, too? Maybe the electric current causes some type of geomagnetic interference (not surprisingly), but I would have expected it to flatline at a higher, rather than baseline number. Of course, I'm not a geophysicist, so this was a layman's expectation, rather than based on some deep scientific insights : -D

jpgsa commented 10 years ago

I didn't notice this but wish I had checked. Might be something that NOAA needs to take a look at.

DKScholz commented 10 years ago

I watched over several evenings, and it seemed to be pretty consistent. One night I left it on Wi-Fi mode with updates every minute. Got a "fuzzy" zig-zag line (as would be expected), but the readings were still baseline level for the most part. I would expect that my phone would experience peaks during daylight hours if any interference or solar storms, so either my house is VERY geomagneticly quiet, or being plugged in to a power source affects the readings.