Getting caught illegal...

I've got this little radio & amp along with radar detectors, scanners, ect. all thrown in a pile.

 

Motor mouth maul had his station confiscated. MMM operates out of California and his station was mobile. He broadcasts on the superbowl channel. For those of you who know DX land, that's channel 6 on your dial. He could be heard world wide when conditions were ideal (propagation) and sounded just like an FM radio station DJ. The only other person other that MMM who I know had their stuff confiscated was Cadillac Man out of Laredo TX. Some of you might remember him as the guy that would take you over to Mexico for a fee and bring you back. He had a station that was so powerful he could be heard nation wide. The right people obviously got upset over it and the FCC got on it. Illegal AM band is currently alive and well in this country with an entire sub-culture operating tens of thousands of mobile stations across America. Key down or shoot outs as they're known are held during the summer months with bands, food, prizes and lots of fun watching the competition. I run a 6 pill fat boy out of my rig powered solely by a DX 94 HP galaxy. Radio on the road is a hobby of mine and helps pass the time during long rides. When conditions are right i can skip all over America.

 

Where did you get this info?

Last I checked, his 84 ft tower fell down (high winds?) and temporarily took him off the air, but he's supposedly fixed it/back on the air and running.

 

That's not quite true. A few years ago there was an FCC attorney who was also a ham who encouraged those who were being interferred with on the 10 Meter band to contact him. Quite a few of the hams DID, whereupon he sent out warning letters to such companies as UPS, FedEX, Conway, and a few others. And some of the hams, pissed off about finding interlopers ON their bands, actually "trapped" truckers by driving along beside them, verifying their identification and turning the info over to FCC. Despite what some may think, it is not as hard to do as one might think. Mostly, they'd simply not say a word and drive down the highway. The drivers would get curious about their "odd" antennas, or the number of them, and try to talk to them on 28.085 AM.. "Hey, you there in the little Chevy with all them antennas, what are they for, etc, etc". Once the driver did that, it was easy to sort him out from all the others. The drivers usually used AM, which is not authorized on that frequency--even for the hams themselves. Then the ham would simply copy the identifying I. D. of the truck and send it to FCC. The man at FCC would then send the company a letter warning them that THEY were responsible for the drivers' illegal actions and that if it didn't stop, they'd face fines of $10,000 PER future occurance.

So, it DID happen. And with success, too. The companies usually restricted their drivers by making them remove any ILLEGAL "10 Meter" radios from their trucks.


Fast forward to today. operating on "extra" channels (and I don't understand why people do that anyway except and unless it's because its an "ego" thing). Operating illegally IS a crap shoot; you might get away with it, BUT if you DO get caught, it suddenly becomes VERY personal since, if they really want to, FCC can issue some hefty fines. And they DO show up on the FCC website from time to time. Its like speeding. For awhile, you might get away with it. But keep it up and one day, there's those flashing blue lights in your mirror!

Those frequencies that myth and legend say are "empty" actually are assigned to somebody. AND often what you hear as some buzzing or unusual sounds IS actually communications; its just in a different mode that doesn't jibe with AM. And if your AM signal happens to annoy someone, they will complain to the Feds and Uh-oh! Like the litttle gnome says in the commercial.
"Wander wisely"

 

Someone in my hometown decided to set up a basement radio station when I was in high school.

This guy broadcasted some weird song about a rainbow on repeat for a few months, I know he got in a bit of a legal bind for it but that was FM freqs, I think he was running 96.9.
Everyone at school thought it was hilarious, I wish I knew what actually happened to him legally.

I can't imagine the FCC really would waste resources prosecuting people over all the silly crap they probably have to deal with, I'd assume you'd get a couple firm warnings before anything serious happened.

 

Hello Jerry. They do that because when dx rolls in, all 390 MHz of the 40 allocated CB channels tend to become a blurred mess of everyone's signals, to the point of not being able to get a message across due to being lost in the mess. So they flock to "quieter" areas of the band.

 

I've been in Riley's office before he retired. Fortunately it was a social thing, not enforcement.

 

I knew him pretty well. His home town is about.....oh, 40 miles south of here.

"They do that because when dx rolls in, all 390 MHz of the 40 allocated CB channels tend to become a blurred mess of everyone's signals, to the point of not being able to get a message across due to being lost in the mess. So they flock to "quieter" areas of the band". (quote)

Has any of the FRS and MURS services taken off with the trucking industry? With the FM quiet, they should be able to pass messages locally and talk among themselves. The LACK of "skip" would be an advantage since more people can use the available spectrum at the same time. IOW, they can "cram" more people in the same amount of space without the paralyzing "skip" noise. I think the tendency of CB ops to "steal" spectrum from legal users is part of the reason they get so disrespected by hams who find them up in 10 Meters on AM. I freely admit that when I hear(ed) them up there I would start a CW QSO right on top of them. Sometimes it discouraged them, or caused them to cuss, but sometimes some of them had ridiculous amounts of power that I couldn't get over the top of!

But, like I said, it is a crap shoot. You might feel you have a "right" to use channels outside CB, but they ARE assigned to other users despite the myth and legend that surrounds the CB hobby about "them channels are 'empty'", CBers have 40 channels, hams have in 10 Meters 28.000 thru 29.700 in various modes. It is what it is, and one can't change the law. BUT! With the relaxed testing now in place, it is so easy to get the license its just not funny! True, you can't use AM and voice modes below 28.300, but you can use SSB and also talk around the world when conditions are right! Its FUN, its easy, and if you'll follow the protocols and procedures historically in place, you can have an absolute BALL on 10 Meters. Upgrade and open even more modes and possibilties!

 

The FCC seems to be pretty easy on CB'ers. They have gone after CB shops though for selling amplifiers that operate on 11 meters (CB).

If you get an SSB CB you can hear cb'ers illegally talking all over North America, Europe, Africa illegally. CB'ers even using SSB are prohibited from transmitting more than 150 miles, but do it all day long.

They go after others though with fines in the tens of thousands of dollars (usually for ignoring FCC warnings). They go after Hams, power co'.s, and even police departments if they create spurious emissons. The FCC has even issued hefty fines against people whose fish tank light sends out radio signals interfering with hams.

Ham radio operators have volunteers sanctioned by the FCC to hunt violators down. A few years ago, Indianapolis Narco Detectives were tired of drug dealers listening to their digital radios, so they went out and bought ham radio walkie talkies which have adjustable transmitting power. Usually 1/2 watt, 3 watts, & 5 or 7 watts. The cops were using them on the lowest wattage possible, on some obscure frequency that hams never use ... at night!

There are literally thousands of frequencies they can choose from.

But there was some old guy scanning all the freq's. in that band, he heard them and contacted his Ham buddies. The next night they got together with their radio signal direction finders and tracked these guys down.

When they caught these guys, they were surprised to find they were narco detectives and agreed not to report them to the FCC. Later, 1 Ham changed his mind and reported them.

The FCC shut them down within days and the cops were disciplined by their dept.. The FCC went after the Michigan State Police once because they were interfering with the Ham band due to faulty equipment. The FCC has fined power companies because the power lines were interfering with tv channels on ppls tv's.

The ARRL.org website has a monthly list of FCC enforcement actions you can look up and see what kinds of fines ppl get.

 

If anybody has been through West Memphis you've heard the dopers on there selling, green smoke, white smoke, party favors, high speed chicken feed. Everybody says it is the cops. A local told me, one of them was a cop and the other a doper. I can't figure out why if it is real dopers, that they don't bust them. It has been going on for at least 20 years that I know of. So, I've concluded it probably is the cops. However, what they are doing seems like entrapment. So I figure they are just hitting them with a big fine and turning them loose. It is a "cash cow" so to speak. So why does the FCC allow it? You can't communicate for the "advertisers" there! Advertising over the airwaves is illegal, or it used to be. The truck wash and cb shops are bad enough and then you throw in the cops (?) and it becomes impossible to communicate in that area. I wonder if anybody has ever filed a complaint to the FCC on that mess?? It seems to me it wouldn't require much of an effort on their part to put a stop to it.......and yet they never have.