[HN Gopher] FCC Warns Portland Church to Shut Down Pirate FM Ope...
___________________________________________________________________
FCC Warns Portland Church to Shut Down Pirate FM Operating Under
Its Steeple
Author : rmason
Score : 111 points
Date : 2023-04-08 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.insideradio.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.insideradio.com)
| jjcon wrote:
| How powerful of a transmitter can you operate legally in the USA?
| How much space does that cover? I know there is some limit cause
| drive in theaters used to transmit on FM and I believe there even
| used to be adapters for cars that would transmit a very very
| short distance.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| In the United States, without a license, on FM you can operate
| with 250 microvolts per meter, measured at a distance of 3
| meters. That comes out to about 11 nanowatts. Depending on your
| receiver, that's probably about 200 feet.
|
| On AM, with some exceptions, you can operate with 1/10th of a
| watt with a 3 meter antenna (a/k/a an inefficient antenna).
| Depending on ground conductivity, frequency used, local
| electricity interference floor and the receiver, that can get
| you out a few hundred feet up to about 1.5 miles (in the most
| ideal conditions).
|
| Bluetooth Auracast is the way to go with terrestrial
| microbroadcasting in my opinion.
| cvoss wrote:
| According to [0], a 200 ft radius is permitted for unlicensed
| AM/FM stations.
|
| [0] https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-
| info...
| News-Dog wrote:
| 'It's all Beer and Skittles' till 'spurious emissions' interferes
| with emergency services, aviation, etc.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, that's the real risk here. Especially if they are using
| crappy gear, it wouldn't be the first time that a badly
| designed end stage outputs more at a harmonic than at the
| principal frequency and your typical FM pirate isn't going to
| have a spectrum analyzer lying around.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Which is ironic given that with modern cheap USB-powered SDRs
| one can build a scanning spectrum analyzer for the FM band
| for approximately $0.
|
| With an expensive SDR (e.g. $300) one can record and play
| back _the entire FM band_ for a time duration limited only by
| one 's available disk space.
| News-Dog wrote:
| 'FM pirate-radio-transmitter interferes with aviation
| communications'
| jamisteven wrote:
| [flagged]
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| What nonsense? There are so many worse things we spend money
| on, like weed busts and minor drug offenses, than tracking down
| unlicensed broadcasting, which can be disruptive to licensed
| users.
| wpietri wrote:
| I'm happy to pay taxes for this. The airwaves are a shared
| resource. Shared things need regulations about how they're
| used. E.g, cops pull people over if they drive on the wrong
| side of the road. This is not 'Nam, Smokey. There are rules.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, I'm with you. Freedom to the people, man. But it's
| obvious that this is necessary to prevent a tragedy of the
| commons and having spectrum flooded with noise.
| gurumeditations wrote:
| [flagged]
| beambot wrote:
| Revoke tax exemptions and see how fast it gets shut down...
| lax4ever wrote:
| Yelp reports this location as no longer being used as a
| church, and the domain for the church has expired. Beyond
| that, the article did not comment on what exactly was being
| broadcast from this particular location, just the frequency.
| It's a bit pretentious to assume that this is a religious
| broadcast just from it being in a closed down location.
|
| Also, a quick search for radio stations using 90.5 FM in
| Portland shows there isn't anything broadcasting on that
| frequency in the area. The FCC regulates this both for
| licensing and to avoid signal contamination. It's not doing
| any physical or mental harm when it's being broadcast on an
| unused frequency in a range of frequencies that are
| designated for exactly the purpose of radio broadcast. The
| operators of this broadcast station, whether it is actually
| the church or not, are not causing physical or mental harm
| but they are ignoring the FCC regulations around licensing a
| particular frequency for public broadcast use.
|
| Disagree with another's beliefs and viewpoints all you want,
| but let's try to avoid assigning motive and/or blame as well
| as spurious accusations where they are not due.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| I'm on another forum that has been discussing this station
| for many months. It's been interfering with KBOO. The
| shoulders of this analog signal on 90.5 overlap with the
| licensed signal on 90.7. It's also blocking out a licensed
| low power FM signal on 90.3.
|
| It's Radio Faro de Luz, and they were running a Spanish
| language religious format.
|
| The church is currently abandoned and owned by another
| church in Salem, Oregon. As the landowner, the church in
| Salem is being threatened with the fine.
| user3939382 wrote:
| They should allocate a portion of FM for the public to use as a
| wild west. May the strongest transmitter win.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| They (governments) can't do this without some kind of control
| over the transmitter used. "Wild" transmitters would have
| spurious emissions that could land in critical frequency
| bands-- for example, they could interfere with air traffic
| frequencies, or frequencies for first responders.
| [deleted]
| howard941 wrote:
| The Low Power FM (LPFM) [0] service provides for 100 watt
| stations covering small areas and _should_ have relieved the
| pressure to pirate but for some reason there hasn 't been an LPFM
| application filing window since 2013. The question I have is why
| has it been so long since new applications were accepted?
|
| [0] https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I don't know the answer to timing of application windows, but I
| believe last time almost all of the permits went to religious
| stations, which may not be what someone sick of what's
| currently available on the proverbial "dial" is looking for.
| (there are no "dials" anymore ha)
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| The application filing windows need to be timed out to give
| other services their opportunity. An LPFM station can be
| impacted (or impact) the following signals which get their own
| filing windows:
|
| Non-Commercial FM (uses same spectrum); Commercial FM (uses
| same spectrum); FM Translators (uses same spectrum); Full Power
| TV (uses adjacent spectrum that LPFMs must consider); Low Power
| TV (uses adjacent spectrum that LPFMs must consider).
|
| The above filing windows can not overlap, and there needs to be
| a time buffer between each window in the event there are
| competing applications, or if there are objections filed by the
| public and other spectrum users that need to be considered.
|
| LPFM will likely be the next window to open. The FCC is
| wrapping up decisions related to the recent Non-Commercial
| filing window. When that is done, they can move on to the next
| window.
| sombragris wrote:
| More info:
|
| https://wirelessestimator.com/articles/2023/reading-isnt-req...
|
| As far as I can gather, the building now hosts a Hispanic
| pentecostal church and the FM radio is operated by that church.
|
| > _A big sign in the front says the worship facility that appears
| to have an FM antenna in the back states it is now the Iclesia
| Petecostes Alfa & Omega ministry. And if the agent wanted to
| contact them, the sign had a one-foot-tall telephone number
| visible a block away that the church's pastor would answer._
|
| The radio even has an online presence:
|
| https://radiofarodeluzoregon.com/
| nimbius wrote:
| As an amateur extra I'm glad to see the enforcement. Most of
| these pirate stations are cobbled together from leaky baofeng
| trash, sizzly amps and random pot steel masquerading as antenna.
| They're dangerous radiation hazards at worst, and almost always a
| nuisance to the airwaves operating as overpowered noise across
| the spectrum. This is a great way to wind up sending randos to
| the urgent care with rf burns.
|
| To be clear I really hope for compliance here as many amateur
| hams are more than willing to help a nonprofit set up a
| commercial radio station to further their mission. Proper
| grounding, signage anchoring safe operation and maintenance are
| all things were well versed on and can lend a hand with,
| oftentimes free of charge
| fortran77 wrote:
| I'm an amateur extra (a _real_ one, with a 20wpm code test at
| an FCC field office -- not some faker who 'passed' a no-code
| test over zoom).
|
| But I'm glad to see the enforcement because I have had a First
| Class Radiotelephone licence and First Class Radiotelegraph
| licence (or had. They eliminated these liceses because of
| "equity"). It's the _commercial_ radio services that pirates
| harm.
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| This attitude is the slow death of amateur radio.
| bmarquez wrote:
| Yep, every generation brings something new to the table and
| gatekeeping is going to kill the hobby.
|
| I can't do 20wpm, but the older hams around me can't figure
| out FT8.
| gatekeepmuch wrote:
| Awww. An amateur extra AND a gatekeeper. Hopefully you were
| able to combine the two license exams.
|
| Also way to ensure your hobby dies with fuds like you.
|
| 01001111 01100110 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111
| 01110101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Pretty much this. It's entirely ham amateur boy scouts that
| police the RF spectrum acting as free labor for the tiny
| enforcement arm of the FCC.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I get it, that there are negative consequences that are
| sometimes disruptive to amateur radio.
|
| However, my counter point would be that it's really the FCC who
| should be blamed for what is obviously an unfair system where
| Clear Channel can basically "own" FM radio across the entire
| country. If a pirate wants to set up a micro transmitter to
| broadcast something cool, and doesn't interfere with anyone
| (obviously unlike this guy), I have a hard time seeing them as
| the villan.
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| The US Congress loosened the restrictions on station
| ownership, enabling the dominance of companies like Clear
| Channel,with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The FCC is
| just enforcing the law.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| The FCC could take the example of law enforcement
| nationwide and understand that it doesn't have to enforce
| the law.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| The FCC, like the rest of the Executive Branch, is tasked
| with executing the law. Neither legislating nor judging
| the law is their job, nor should they engage in such
| behaviour.
|
| Two wrongs do not make a right.
| moremetadata wrote:
| [dead]
| jacquesm wrote:
| > This is a great way to wind up sending randos to the urgent
| care with rf burns.
|
| In my - ahem - personal experience with RF burns that would
| require rather close contact at those frequencies. Though I
| have it from a reliable source that you should always first
| check if there are any pigeons sitting on your antenna before
| powering up anything over a few hundred Watts.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > you should always first check if there are any pigeons
| sitting on your antenna before powering up anything over a
| few hundred Watts
|
| Portland Fried Pigeons o_O
| jacquesm wrote:
| You can make fluorescent tubes light up at considerable
| distance with a beefy enough transmitter.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| In Norway the government decided to shut down the entire FM
| network to force people to move over to DAB+.
|
| This "official" end of the FM band happened years ago but some
| radio stations under certain conditions have been allowed to
| operate on the FM band still.
|
| I have never heard about pirate stations here in Norway. I lived
| most of my life in Colorado and there used to be a few :)
|
| It would seem fun to operate a few FM pirate radio stations in
| Norway since nobody is supposed to use the frequencies anyhow.
| Gwiz462 wrote:
| This is near my house!
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think the interesting question regarding these events is if
| these are victimless crimes or not.
|
| That is to say, is there a license holder for that frequency that
| is being disrupted or not?
|
| For commons that are not being used, and are not damaged, I think
| the think reasonable use should be allowed.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The FM band is pretty crowded in most places, and there are a
| bunch of very important frequency bands right next to it and on
| multiples of those frequencies so if it wasn't designed very
| carefully there is a good chance of interference with something
| that matters. And people operating something that matters tend
| to have a hotline to the FCC for such cases. I'm surprised they
| issued a 'warning' rather than that they just took it down and
| confiscated the gear.
| lax4ever wrote:
| It certainly poses an interesting question. In the context of
| this article I ran a quick search for any registered stations
| in the Portland area using 90.5 FM and I didn't find anything.
| Not saying that there isn't, but nothing I could find quickly.
|
| Also, I don't know many pirate stations that would broadcast
| solely for the purpose of disrupting another station. My
| understanding was that most pirate broadcasters do so in order
| to send their own message, and so finding open signal space
| would seem to be key.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| This station was interfering with KBOO on 90.7 and a licensed
| low power FM on 90.3. The shoulders of the analog signal on
| 90.5 overlap the signals on 90.3 and 90.7.
| pstuart wrote:
| Is this interference avoidable if using the right gear
| correctly?
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| No, the analog signals would overlap.
|
| In this case, KBOO on 90.7 is running HD format, which
| puts the lower digital shoulder at 90.5 MHz. So this
| station was operating on top of KBOO, compromising the
| KBOO signal. 90.5 - 90.6 MHz contained two signals,
| although the pirate operator didn't know that, as the
| digital hash sounds like static to the untrained ear.
| Ekaros wrote:
| 200 kHz isn't that much. One can easily observe the
| effect by slightly tuning off radio and still hearing
| something.
| colinsane wrote:
| isn't this the usual spacing of these bands: 200 kHz apart?
| like 101.3, 101.5, 101.7 were all distinct stations growing
| up IIRC.
|
| does KBOO have a right to 90.5 being unoccupied? e.g. did
| they purchase double the spectrum as those higher-frequency
| stations?
| alwaysbeconsing wrote:
| There appear to be licensed stations at 90.3 and 90.7, which
| is close enough to be a problem.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Check the harmonics too.
| temp12192021 wrote:
| Wonder if - lacking an order top stop from the FCC - I could
| occupy a frequency and ultimately claim squatters rights or
| adverse posession on the frequency if someone eventually
| licenses it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The spectrum is pretty much regulated all the way up to
| microwave bands and beyond.
| shagie wrote:
| You can get a poster of the radio spectrum for a very
| reasonable price (shipping included!) at
| https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/united-states-
| frequency-a... (it's currently backordered).
| technothrasher wrote:
| Adverse possession traces its roots back to the Homestead Act
| of 1862. I'm not sure how exactly you'd claim you were making
| a residence out of a radio frequency.
| kragen wrote:
| adverse possession is quite a bit older than 01862, kid
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession#History
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucapio
| Spooky23 wrote:
| No. The airwaves belong to the public, as licensed by the
| FCC. You don't have any squatters rights to the airwaves.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I'm not talking about durable squatters right. More akin
| swimming in the ocean or hiking a cross a field
| swayvil wrote:
| According to conventional wisdom, mandate derives purely from
| consensus. No justification or empirical validation necessary.
| haupt wrote:
| This feels like something straight out of Disco Elysium.
| [deleted]
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Radio squatting
|
| Interesting
|
| This broken Federal law of fining the property owner might be a
| clever way to get some empty real estate back the market at
| firesale prices
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Article is weird. It does not seem to draw any correlation
| between the church-based transmitter and the dude who's
| surrendered multiple transmitters and acted defiant. Other than
| placing both stories in one article, that is.
|
| Also, they don't give any hints as to the content of any of these
| pirate stations. Is it illegal to listen or report on that?
| asn0 wrote:
| The "in related news" story in this article is way more
| interesting, someone who apparently feels pretty strongly about
| running a pirate radio station.
|
| - FCC is proposing $80,000 fine against a man in Oregon for
| operating an FM pirate radio station since 2018
|
| - first complaint was in 2018, agents tracked it down, warned the
| man, and he gave them his transmitter
|
| - second complaint in 2019, agents tracked it to the man's new
| home, they warned him again, he gave them his transmitter
|
| - 2 stern warnings wasn't enough, because third complaint came in
| 2022, agents tracked it to the man's home again, the man's wife
| gave them 2 tranmitters
|
| - the man then posted many videos on Facebook about his pirate
| radio station, and dared the FCC to lock him up. He then started
| another pirate radio station
| jacquesm wrote:
| Amsterdam pirate stations in the heyday of pirate radio (and
| TV!) had spares on the shelf. It usually wouldn't be more than
| an hour or two after a raid and they'd be back on the air as if
| nothing changed. In rare cases stations were off the air for
| more than that, and usually only because the studio itself had
| been raided and that took a lot more to put back together again
| than the transmitter location (usually far removed from the
| studio).
| dmix wrote:
| How much does a transmitter (station) cost?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Depending on the output power anything from a few hundred
| to many thousands, especially if you want it to be clean.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I've sat next to an FCC officer whilst operating just above and
| just below citizens band. He was more curious than anything
| about our local CB group. This may no longer be the case but at
| the time they didn't really care about people _doing their own
| thing_ unless they were interfering with a business or any
| other revenue impacting shenanigans. We were careful to not
| interfere. Well, most of us. One of us could be heard through
| ceiling fans, toasters, light bulbs, TV 's but he rarely spoke.
| We noticed that the FCC would make an example of an extreme
| clown about once a month and it would get published in a
| magazine but they always left us alone I think in part because
| we all used nice gear and only operated with the power required
| to get the job done. We would only step it up when someone was
| trying to clobber the truck drivers.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Wait what. "could be heard through light bulbs and ceiling
| fans"?!
| nemo44x wrote:
| I picked up radio on an old metal dental filling back in
| the day. Was enough to subtly vibrate it and make it
| audible to me in my bedroom when it was quiet.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Yup. Even though he had a nice President series radio, he
| was driving the amp too hard and his beam antenna was
| aligned to skip to the south-east of the US which happened
| to align with the 15KV lines. He liked to occasionally talk
| smack to the guys in the Louisiana swamp lands. I guess one
| could say that was an old school troll.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Couple years ago I was driving down the highway and got
| within a few hundred meters of a guy who was no doubt
| shooting skip on CB (skipping the ionosphere to work
| hundreds of miles away). The signal was powerful enough
| that when he keyed on his taillights would almost shut off
| and I could hear him through the cassette adapter in my
| car.
| aksss wrote:
| I've heard it's possible to anonymously fry people's
| systems with annoyingly loud bass this way. Urban legend?
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > Urban legend?
|
| Likely, we had a thread on HN a few years back that just
| turned out to be IR remote disabling speakers:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28817683 .
|
| However there are some 'jammer' type technologies used to
| temporarily disable cars and UAV's by causing the chips
| to overload and makes the ECM crash on most cars. It
| doesn't fry them:
| https://www.teledyne-e2v.com/en/solutions/rf-power/rf-
| soluti... and an article on it
| https://www.police1.com/police-products/pursuit-
| management-t...
| 13of40 wrote:
| Back when modems were a thing, I spent some time living
| at a friend's house, and shortly after I moved my
| computer in I started hearing voices. Very faint, but the
| content was ominous fire and brimstone stuff. I thought I
| was losing my mind, but I hunted around and they were
| coming from the computer. Apparently the phone line was
| acting like an antenna and picking up some religious AM
| radio show, and playing it through the modem's speaker.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| That still seems to be the case. If you tune into some
| shortwave bands between 6 and 7 MHz where there never seems
| to be any commercial traffic, there's still regular pirate
| broadcasts inside of the US (I think it's a neat hobby for a
| lot of people -- I certainly like listening). I'm sure if
| really pressed the FCC would do something about it, but short
| of extreme abuse they don't seem to do much outside of
| occasional spurts of cracking down (unless you're operating
| in the FM bands, or otherwise impacting commercial or
| military comms).
|
| Probably the quickest way to get the FCC hunting you down,
| now that I think about it, outside of irritating a commercial
| or mil operator, is to draw the ire of hams, some of whom, so
| far as I can tell, will go to the ends of the earth to stop
| you/ruin your day if you give them reason.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| It's mostly ham boomers who find and report these. Same goes
| for unlicensed ham'ers. The FCCs enforcement arm is very tiny.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| No, most of these broadcast enforcement actions are driven by
| interference reported by licensed broadcasters.
|
| I don't know (offhand) who reported interference for the
| Portland station, but they were running an analog FM signal
| over the digital signal of a licensed independent public
| broadcaster. There were two signals on the bandwidth between
| 90.5-90.6 MHz. If a pirate station operates in the same town
| on the same frequency, it's likely a complaint would generate
| from that.
| [deleted]
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I know it's not a popular opinion, but the AM/FM radio bands
| have become such (corporate) crap that I laud people like this
| radio pirate. I wish a kind of public-access could open up on
| half the frequencies on the dial.
| jker wrote:
| During pandemic I set up a little automated FM radio station
| for my block and the surrounding ones. It had a voice-
| synthesized DJ and a big randomized playlist of great music.
| The whole thing ran on an RPi with a little USB FM
| transmitter. My neighbors - the ones who still owned radios -
| loved it.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Just to clarify, was this illegal?
| jker wrote:
| I don't think so, the transmitter was under the power
| limit for amateur FM, and it didn't overlap any local
| stations. That was my interpretation of the law as I read
| it before I built the station, doesn't make it accurate
| or authoritative though.
| [deleted]
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| A legal unlicensed FM transmitter could possibly cover a
| small area as described.
|
| If it's line-of-sight on a frequency with no interference
| and stays at the legal limit of 250 microvolts per meter
| measured at 3 meters, and there's a good receiver with a
| good antenna, it's possible.
| [deleted]
| myself248 wrote:
| Pretty damn popular with me. Licensing and ownership rules
| are as corrupt as can be.
|
| Radio belongs to the people, it is the definition of a public
| good. It is incontrovertible that the ownership rules will be
| tweaked in the direction of corporate interests at every
| opportunity.
|
| People (you and I, and our elected representatives, and
| pirates) need to do everything possible to yank it back, as
| far and as hard as we can.
|
| The fact that LPFM hasn't even _pretended_ to offer the
| _opportunity_ for a license in _ten years_ is everything you
| need to know about that farce.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| The timing of LPFM windows can't really be closer than 10
| years from the previous window. Filing windows with LPFM
| and certain other services can't overlap, and there legally
| needs to be time between each for consider objections and
| competing applications.
|
| An LPFM window can not overlap with: (1) Full Power Non-
| Commercial FM Stations, (2) Full Power Commercial FM
| Stations, (3) FM Translators (or, repeaters), (4) Full
| Power TV Stations, and (5) Low Power TV Stations. These
| windows can not overlap because each of the above services
| must consider each other in their applications.
|
| The FCC is still wrapping up decisions from the recent 2021
| Non-Commercial FM filing window, and has said that they
| expect LPFM to be next. But they can't do that until the
| public has the opportunity to object to the final permit
| granted.
| xattt wrote:
| Corporate crap or not, but disregarding regulations around
| spectrum use will cause modern society to ground to a halt.
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| May the loudest transmitter win. 50,000 watts out Mexico, I
| heard it on the X
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Laughs in Russian Woodpecker.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar
|
| Back when I was really active in HF, this thing was nuts.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Let's reenact the discovery of the microwave!
| binarymax wrote:
| For the most part that's unfortunately true.
|
| In some towns (like mine) I'm fortunate that there are a
| couple stations that are either listener supported, or run by
| a local university as a vocational program to teach
| broadcasting and DJ disciplines.
|
| Good radio is (for me) the best way to discover music. I love
| my local stations WITR college radio run by RIT and WBER
| which is listener supported.
|
| I totally get pirate radio as a cultural necessity to fill
| that gap for cities where the radio is all commercial shit.
| thangalin wrote:
| I develop radio transceiver software for FCC-compliant
| radios.
|
| The FCC helps ensure that specific radio bands are allocated
| for emergency purposes. There are regulations based on
| numerous performance characteristics of radios that must be
| met before a radio transmitter can be sold and operated. The
| problem with pirates is that they either aren't aware of
| these considerations or don't care. Either way could lead to
| interference with firefighters, police, or ambulance dispatch
| in life-critical situations. (The P25 digital radio
| communications standard was written specifically to address
| interoperability between different manufacturers, as a direct
| result of the inability for first responders to coordinate
| efforts during 9/11, which led to more lives lost than would
| have happened otherwise.)
|
| Beyond the FCC, counties need to stay within their allocated
| spectrum band, lest they interfere with neighbouring
| transceivers.
|
| Yes, corporate radio is trash. In Canada, we have CBC Radio,
| which is free of advertisements. Allowing radio pirates to
| jam airwaves is neither a good idea nor a good solution to
| corporate crap.
| darepublic wrote:
| College radio stations are usually pretty good. i.e in
| Toronto CIUT 89.5. I occasionally listen to CBC radio but
| on the whole I find it pretty vapid.
| ctoth wrote:
| Okay, now, can you explain to me how an FM transmitter,
| transmitting somewhere between 87 MHz and 108 MHz will
| interfere with your emergency services? Potential
| harmonics? Can you point at one case of this ever
| happening, ever in real life where modern emergency
| communications were interrupted by a _FM_ transmitter?
| lajupechere wrote:
| It's not emergency, but i would consider an airport to
| qualify. The airport on Orcas Island, WA had harmonics
| issues from someone running an illicit FM transmitter in
| 2018.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| Another one is in California:
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-128793A1.pdf
|
| More recently, a construction permit on 107.9 was
| cancelled after it was determined that it could not co-
| exist with an airport. (If I find the link, I'll edit
| this reply and post it)
| ipaddr wrote:
| CBC radio is an advertisement.
|
| What emergency services are operating under its Steeple in
| this case?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You've made a good point regarding bad pirate transmitters.
|
| I still contend that public-access radio ought to be a
| thing. It can be a certified station in the same way that
| cable-access in the 1980's was not "pirate cable".
| TylerE wrote:
| Difference is cable was, well, cable. By definition is
| cannot cause interference.
| stemlord wrote:
| Don't all these issues exist BECAUSE fm/am radio has no
| public access to begin with? Illegal marijuana means no
| regulation of the supply chain, for example
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Can you help us understand how realistic the concern is
| that a pirate might interfere with emergency services? Is
| it that easy?
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| Broadcast transmitters need certification or other forms
| of verification as a way to certify that they do not put
| out spurious emissions. Many uncertified transmitters put
| out emissions at 10.6 and 21.2 MHz above the operating
| frequency. 90.5 MHz plus 21.2 equals 111.7 MHz, which is
| in middle of a band of frequencies used for aircraft
| navigational aids. You can easily imagine how that can be
| a danger.
|
| Pirate stations generally don't fork out the extra cash
| to get a certified or verified transmitter. And
| uncertified/unverified transmitter manufacturers
| generally don't test for compliance regarding
| interference to public safety bands.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Should we be worried about hostile powers building radio
| transmitters to interfere with emergency broadcasts, but
| only turning them on before they launch a nuke at us?
| Dalewyn wrote:
| This desperate grasping for straw to try and justify
| illegal use of radio is sad to witness.
|
| Radio is available for use for everyone with proper
| licensing and certification; there's even a block of
| frequencies reserved for amateur use (read: ham radio).
|
| The US is a country based on rule of law, your anarchist
| arguments aren't providing useful discussion.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| I don't think so. The amount of infrastructure (most
| notably, power) needed to operate such a transmitter that
| would make a meaningful impact to emergency broadcasts
| would raise red flags on the local level well in advance.
| GravitasFailure wrote:
| I've had severe radio interference from Mexico while I
| was about 600 miles from the border and less than 50 from
| the US station's 5KW transmitter, and I have no idea how
| much further from the border the Mexican station was.
| Handheld radios from a business illegally operating on
| the wrong frequency rendered radio comms at a job site I
| was working at completely unusable, and those
| transmitters are less than 1 watt. Your received power is
| miniscule compared to what even small transmitters are
| throwing out, so it really doesn't take much to degrade
| the signal to the point of uselessness, and those are
| with properly built transmitters and receivers on the
| wrong channels, forget some amateur station that's
| blasting noise all over the spectrum.
| jandrese wrote:
| I agree 1000% about legal AM/FM being a corporate wasteland.
| The 1996 Telecommunications Act was a huge mistake and should
| be repealed.
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