[aprssig] Radio Pirates

Jim (List) jim.list at stuckinthemud.org
Sun Jan 15 03:26:30 EST 2012


An undesired effect of seemingly "licensed" equipment is use in other
countries where people don't understand about licensing and band usage.

I'm in the UK and, as the US FRS system became popular, people started
bringing handhelds into the UK on holiday. The EU have and equivalent system
on different frequencies around 446MHz - Google "PMR446", 462/467MHz are in
the general pool of site-specific licensed allocations.

Problem was, one of the FRS frequencies was used by Heathrow (London)
airport for their fire service repeater and they often got interference from
passengers using the radios around the terminal buildings. The repeater had
to move frequency.

I'm sure the same happens the other way around, so there are likely to be EU
visitors operating in the US 70cm band!



Jim, G1HUL


-----Original Message-----
From: aprssig-bounces at tapr.org [mailto:aprssig-bounces at tapr.org] On Behalf
Of Glenn Little WB4UIV
Sent: 15 January 2012 01:07
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List
Subject: Re: [aprssig] Radio Pirates

On the flip side.. I had an Extra class ham wanting me to help him get rid
of some interference on a "secret frequency" that he and his wife used.
The secret frequency was a military frequency used by a local military
installation.
His interference was from the authorized users of the frequency.
He came from another state where that frequency was not used.
When I asked him why they were using that frequency, the reply was that the
radio would go there so it must be ok.
This was from an Extra class operator!!!

What would you expect from a non technical person using a programmable
radio, just keep changing frequencies until you find a clear one.

I work for a TV station where we recently went through rebanding of our
remote video transmitters as part of the remediation of the Nextel
interference problem.
Nextel had to move all the TV stations as well as some other users to get a
clear area for their digital radios.
Wonder why your Nextel bill is so high?
The replacement radios that we got were agile radios made by BMS.
By agile, I do not mean channel agile, I mean frequency agile.
These radios will tune into the 2.4 GHz ham band.
It will be just a matter of time before the seven BAS frequencies will not
be enough and a TV station Chief Engineer will have one of these on a ham
frequency.
The Chief Engineer does not hold any type of a license.


73
Glenn
WB4UIV



At 03:03 PM 1/14/2012, you wrote:
>Amateur Radio is largely self-policed. Anyone can buy an automobile, 
>but it is illegal to operate on the highway without a license. This is 
>fairly well policed in most jurisdictions. The FCC doesn't have lots of 
>folks driving around in cars checking out folks with HTs. We let each 
>other know about these situations because most folks who have buttons 
>to push will push them, PTT included. I doubt the flea market vendor 
>instructed each customer as to the restrictions imposed on the various 
>frequencies the device could access, if the vendor was even aware 
>themself.
>
>Mike Galgano
>KB7PUX
>
>Joshua Shriver wrote:
>
>>Curious but what is exactly wrong with this? Anyone (non-hams) can buy 
>>a ham radio. It's just illegal to broadcast without a license.
>>
>>-Josh
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>aprssig mailing list
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>
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