violating FCC rules

Has anybody ever been convicted of violating FCC rules? I'm sure somebody has and the penalties are steep but is sure must be rare for anybody to be convicted. Let's face it, 99.9% of all CBs that have been in a CB shop are pushing more than 4 watts.

Back years ago when CBs were really big, I knew some people that were pushing over 2,000 watts. I had a base setup that would talk 30 miles pretty easy and a mobile setup that I could come over the TV in the house sitting in the driveway. Nobody ever got in any sort of trouble but we weren't stupid with them either.

Now I'm just running a well tuned but bone stock Cobra 29. I grew out of the notion that my radio had to be bigger than yours.

 

I new a guy that was running a big base station and lived within rock throwing distance of a church. He had been drinking a few beers on Sunday evening and decided to crank the base up. He ended up coming over the church PA system during service. We all know how a old drunk trucker can get on the CB, it wasn't pretty. Luckily, he knew some members there and they made him aware of the problem and he vowed to never run his setup again while church was in service. I think he also made a formal apology to the church leadership.

When I was right out of high school I worked for a guy that also owned a Honda motorcycle dealership. The local PD had brought in a old police motorcycle to be repaired. Evidently they couldn't get the repair cost approved and that thing sat in the back of the shop for well over a year. One of the mechanics would get on the police radio from time to time and mess with the cops. I'm sure that would have been some big trouble but they never did find out where the signal was coming from.