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Just a thought experiment (not defending him or anything): If he (albeit illegally) provided extremely useful information to the firefighters that prevented a
by can16358p 4y ago
Just a thought experiment (not defending him or anything):
If he (albeit illegally) provided extremely useful information to the firefighters that prevented a bigger spread and possible saved lives, would FCC still fine it?
e.g. Jumping in the plane's communication frequency and telling them the coordinates where a fire they haven't realized, say, is moving very close to a oil refinary. (Just made it up but you get the idea)
- Ensorceled 4y agoI'm pretty sure in that scenario the response would have been an "acknowledged unknown comms, thank you and leave the channel" After multiple "gtfo" this isn't the scenario...
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoWell yeah, there are always exceptions and this isn't an automatic ruling. But it does not apply here, and you can read the details to see why not. As for your hypothetical scenario, why would they hijack the plane's communications channel, instead of contact the central fire fighting authorities through the proper channels? If you don't know what the proper channels are, you shouldn't have a license. This is another reason the guy was fined; it wasn't a random that happened to find a radio set to the reserved frequency (or however these things work), it was a licensed radio operator, they get trained and tested. And he repeated offenses, despite being told to stop / get off the channel.
- t0mas88 4y agoIf you want to talk to a plane about an emergency, you would use the designated emergency frequency. A trained radio operator is supposed to know that frequency.