Cell Phone Jammer: The Complete Guide

People from all over the world reach out to us in an effort to learn more about the so-called “cell phone jammer”, simply because there is not enough information on the internet or perhaps they never even heard about them before and stumbled across the term while playfully browsing the internet.

For the less tech-savvy, a cell phone jammer is a device that prevents cell phones from receiving signals transmitted by the antennas located on a cell tower, or more appropriately a cell site.

What it does is that it transmits on the same frequency as the nearby cell phone but it does that by sending a far “louder and more powerful” signal.

Therefore, when you turn on a mobile phone jammer, its signals counteract all of the other signals in a given area. Hence, the cell tower will eventually be unable to communicate (send and receive) with the aforementioned device.

To make it easier for you to understand what a cellular jammer is, let’s picture this: you and your friend are talking to each other on the side of the road. Then, an ambulance passes by with a very loud siren. All of a sudden, you can’t hear your friend’s words and vice versa. In this scenario, you are the cell phone. Your friend is the cell tower. The loud ambulance is the jammer.

Basically, the deafening sound of the siren drowns out every word uttered by you or your friend. This is the simplest way to put it.

How Does a Cell Phone Jammer Work?

We'll have this professional gadget reviewer explain how a smartphone jammer works in the easiest way possible. He will give you different examples of scenarios where you can use a cellular jammer and see people's reactions when they eventually see the signal strength bars on their phones disappearing one by one.

When you speak with your friend on your mobile phone, your phone converts your voice into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted via radio waves to the nearest cell tower. The network of cell towers then relays the radio wave to your friend's cell phone, which converts it to an electrical signal and then back to sound again

As mentioned above, a mobile phone is a two-way communication device. It receives and transmits the signal in order to work. The signal strength is indicated by the number of “bars” on the notification panel on your phone. The more bars you see, the stronger the cell phone signal.

The connectivity strength, between a cell phone and its nearby cell site to which the cell phone latches on, depends on both inbound and outbound signals and is affected by many different factors. The distance between the cell phone and the cell tower and the number of obstacles/hurdles between them are some of the major factors that determine either a good or bad cell phone reception.

Incidentally, a poor reception (fewer bars) normally indicates a long-distance and/or much signal interruption between the cell phone and the cell tower. That’s why you struggle to get reception in your garage or in your basement. It’s much harder for the signal to penetrate these areas of the house.

Cell Phone Jamming Range Explained

Similarly, a jammer operates in the same way. Funnily enough, that’s where its weak point is.

A mobile phone jammer is unlike any other electronic equipment you find on the market. Its performance and efficiency depend heavily on the signal strength in a particular area.

E.g. a cell phone jammer with 1W of output power per channel can block cell phone signals within 10-30 meters, ONLY IF the cell phone signal strength in that location is either decent or weak (1-2 signal bars on your phone). If you receive full coverage (3-4 signal bars on your phone) in a certain spot, then a cell phone jammer with the same output power (1W) can only guarantee 3-10 meters jamming radius.

Sometimes it can even prove to be completely inefficient as the signal strength is way too powerful for a 1W jammer to handle. This is crucial to understand before you purchase one in order to avoid any complaints afterward.

Are Cell Phone Jammers Illegal?

This might seem the million-dollar question but the answer is fairly simple and it varies from country to country.
Well, the short answer is that in most countries cell phone jammers are illegal whereas in some others there is no specific regulation in place or official announcement from their governments.

Anyway, let’s look at some of the major countries that have prohibited the use of cell phone jammers for the consumers, with the exception of the armed forces.