Cell phone interference with avy beacon

unofficialnetworks.com/cell-phones-inter...nche-beacons-126467/

A good reminder as the season ramps up (even if slowly).  Especially the reminder that putting your phone in airplane mode does not solve the problem.  A couple of related TAY threads:

www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=26624.0
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=23345.0

I've been thinking about this topic a lot recently, and have two questions/musings, that I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on:

1) Should we expect GPS watches to also cause interference? (I would assume yes). Altimeter watches?

2) This is the bigger question... everything we read says "Studies have shown there is little interference with a transmitting beacon. If you’re buried and you forgot to turn off your iPhone, don’t worry... Interference mostly occurs when beacons are in search mode."  But if I'm buried and my partner is searching for me, and my phone/GPS/radio/whatever is on, won't my device interfere with my partner's searching beacon once she gets to the distance of a fine search??  If so, there's a flaw in saying "don't worry about it if you're buried"...  Or am I missing something?

Seems that you have to be pretty close to get interference. I mean, you have to be practically on the surface to cause interfere with your partner's searching device.

But you know what's best: be conservative and don't get caught!

Cheers
Ivo

And you can't just turn off your phone becaaaaaause.......?????

And you can't just turn off your phone becaaaaaause.......?????

"I" was relative (I always turn mine off).  But I know some folks don't, or some folks like to take pictures with their phones and thus leave them on - but see the aforementioned "putting the phone in airplane mode does not eliminate the interference". 

GPS or radios, if being used, are more likely to be on, though.

Well, the article does lead you to believe that airplane mode will lessen interference, and it also notes that 8" is enough distance from a searching beacon to prevent interference.  If the searchers beacon is within 8" of a victims cell phone, they are probably excavating already.