My friend's cell phone, a Motorola V235, makes her monitor appear to degauss and give off a sequence of beeps when it is near her monitor. It makes her television do something similar, with the sequence of beeps sounding exactly like the ones that came out of her monitor. I've been thinking about it for a while, but can't quite understand why it would do this. My guess would be some sort of EM radiation, but it's honestly a stab in the dark? Anyone know how to explain this, or experienced anything like this before?
Well, magnetic fields screw with CRTs. That's how CRTs operate. As for the beeps, I don't know. CRTs put off audiable (for some) noise, but I don't know exactly how. If the phone is screwing with it, it's entirely possible it alters the noise.
Well, I know it has to do with EMI, but why this particular phone and not others.
I don't think it is limited to that phone. As far as anecdotal evidence goes, this is a pretty common occurance. I always know when I am getting a phone call (or SMS) because of monitor interference. Sometimes, though, it seems to happen randomly. Whenever the phone sends/recieves info, I guess.