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Some amateur radio operators are jerks, so you should go well out of your way to sabotage operators you've never met? As "civil disobedience"? This is an absol

Some amateur radio operators are jerks, so you should go well out of your way to sabotage operators you've never met? As "civil disobedience"? This is an absolutely insane take. I mean, this is like slashing every tire in your work parking lot because someone drove by your house with an obnoxiously loud muffler.

1827163 3y ago
There's nothing illegal about installing powerline networking adapters. Doing that to protest the absolutely outrageous fines being dished out there. And that so many radio amateurs support this kind of punishment for relatively trivial behavior, that has caused no physical harm to anyone. It's like a sit in protest, to disrupt it, without breaking the law. It's not hams being jerks that's the problem. It's that their threats have the backing of the law. They have many petty rules, which if you break you can find yourself in trouble. With fellow amateur radio operators being the ones notifying the authorities. That's what really riles me up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20294483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20294483 This guy here is being fined $24,000 for what is essentially petty harassment, which is ridiculous.
- PhasmaFelis 3y ago
  > There's nothing illegal about installing powerline networking adapters. Nobody said there was. > It's like a sit in protest, to disrupt it, without breaking the law. Sit-ins work better if the subject is aware that a protest is happening and why, and also if the subject is the one who actually did the thing you're protesting. Some ham operators did shitty things, and you've decided based on zero evidence that every single ham operator everywhere is equally responsible and deserves to be punished, by you. In sit-in terms, this is like you heard about a racist lunch counter in Mississippi, so you decided to strike a blow for justice by throwing a brick through the window of a bistro in New York. What you're talking about isn't a protest. You're not raising awareness, you're not applying pressure to change behavior or change the law. You're just mad about something and you're venting it on a random bystander who reminds you of the guy you're mad at. If you're unhappy about radio laws, there are ways to organize and fight to get them changed. This isn't one of them.
  - 1827163 3y ago
    This is why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorLTsOVFeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorLTsOVFeE He wanted to use the Baofeng radios on license-free FRS frequencies and got so much shit for that. He very much sums up how I feel about it. As long as it's programmed for the correct frequencies, who cares? It's not just some operators, it's a large part of the ham community that's bent on policing "intruders" like that. I don't really care what other people think about my actions here. We can all have different ways we protest this issue, as long as it's lawful. I'm just hoping that there's a tiny chance that idea might spread. As one of the many ways of fighting back against these draconian measures, without breaking the law. And I'll continue to come up with more entirely legal ways of countering this. While I don't personally think it's hazardous to health, some people do believe that having a multiple hundred watt transmitter in the neighborhood might have health effects, and it could be especially harmful to small children. Lots of people used to complain about smart meters, and those are only 1 Watt at most, which is tiny by comparison. Or even better, refuse to participate in the ham community and find something else to do, as the guy in the YouTube video does.
    - 1827163 3y ago
      I think maybe it shouldn't be legal to operate high power amateur stations in built up areas, due to health and safety concerns? That there might be enough people out there, once they are aware of the very high power levels used by amateur radio operators, that might absolutely not want this going on, because they have children around, and they don't want these extreme power levels inside their homes. These hams are so willing to police people potentially intruding on their bands, but that's there's a chance that their very high powered signals, which are intruding onto nearby homes, are putting peoples' children at risk. I think we don't really know the full risk of it is right now, that the debate's out on it? And it's worse than 5G microwave signals, because those are dramatically attenuated by the walls of the home. Which is not the case for amateur radio, which uses much lower frequencies, especially HF. In the UK they have already passed legislation regarding EMF safety for amateur radio stations. https://www.icnirp.org/en/differences.html https://www.icnirp.org/en/differences.html

1827163 3y ago

There's nothing illegal about installing powerline networking adapters. Doing that to protest the absolutely outrageous fines being dished out there. And that so many radio amateurs support this kind of punishment for relatively trivial behavior, that has caused no physical harm to anyone. It's like a sit in protest, to disrupt it, without breaking the law. It's not hams being jerks that's the problem. It's that their threats have the backing of the law. They have many petty rules, which if you break you can find yourself in trouble. With fellow amateur radio operators being the ones notifying the authorities. That's what really riles me up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20294483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20294483 This guy here is being fined $24,000 for what is essentially petty harassment, which is ridiculous.

PhasmaFelis 3y ago
> There's nothing illegal about installing powerline networking adapters. Nobody said there was. > It's like a sit in protest, to disrupt it, without breaking the law. Sit-ins work better if the subject is aware that a protest is happening and why, and also if the subject is the one who actually did the thing you're protesting. Some ham operators did shitty things, and you've decided based on zero evidence that every single ham operator everywhere is equally responsible and deserves to be punished, by you. In sit-in terms, this is like you heard about a racist lunch counter in Mississippi, so you decided to strike a blow for justice by throwing a brick through the window of a bistro in New York. What you're talking about isn't a protest. You're not raising awareness, you're not applying pressure to change behavior or change the law. You're just mad about something and you're venting it on a random bystander who reminds you of the guy you're mad at. If you're unhappy about radio laws, there are ways to organize and fight to get them changed. This isn't one of them.
- 1827163 3y ago
  This is why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorLTsOVFeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorLTsOVFeE He wanted to use the Baofeng radios on license-free FRS frequencies and got so much shit for that. He very much sums up how I feel about it. As long as it's programmed for the correct frequencies, who cares? It's not just some operators, it's a large part of the ham community that's bent on policing "intruders" like that. I don't really care what other people think about my actions here. We can all have different ways we protest this issue, as long as it's lawful. I'm just hoping that there's a tiny chance that idea might spread. As one of the many ways of fighting back against these draconian measures, without breaking the law. And I'll continue to come up with more entirely legal ways of countering this. While I don't personally think it's hazardous to health, some people do believe that having a multiple hundred watt transmitter in the neighborhood might have health effects, and it could be especially harmful to small children. Lots of people used to complain about smart meters, and those are only 1 Watt at most, which is tiny by comparison. Or even better, refuse to participate in the ham community and find something else to do, as the guy in the YouTube video does.
  - 1827163 3y ago
    I think maybe it shouldn't be legal to operate high power amateur stations in built up areas, due to health and safety concerns? That there might be enough people out there, once they are aware of the very high power levels used by amateur radio operators, that might absolutely not want this going on, because they have children around, and they don't want these extreme power levels inside their homes. These hams are so willing to police people potentially intruding on their bands, but that's there's a chance that their very high powered signals, which are intruding onto nearby homes, are putting peoples' children at risk. I think we don't really know the full risk of it is right now, that the debate's out on it? And it's worse than 5G microwave signals, because those are dramatically attenuated by the walls of the home. Which is not the case for amateur radio, which uses much lower frequencies, especially HF. In the UK they have already passed legislation regarding EMF safety for amateur radio stations. https://www.icnirp.org/en/differences.html https://www.icnirp.org/en/differences.html