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Don’t hold your breath on anyone doing anything about it. Regulators wont even go after intentional interference. See: The guys in the southern U.S. running 10
by transcriptase 3y ago
Don’t hold your breath on anyone doing anything about it. Regulators wont even go after intentional interference.
See: The guys in the southern U.S. running 10,000-100,000W AM transmitters with dirty amps that splatter 6 CB channels at a time across half the planet. And all they do is yell gibberish and try to drown each other out 16 hours a day, making swathes of the 11m band unusable when they get bored of 27.025 and start moving to higher channels.
They’ve been doing it for 30-40 years, and people have been complaining and reporting it the entire time.
- rjbwork 3y agoWould like to read more about these menaces and the reasons for the government's refusal. Do you have any articles or blogs or even other comments you could link me to to read more about this?
- transcriptase 3y agoGoogle or YouTube CB Channel 6 Superbowl. At one point it was sort of an unwritten rule that they kept to Channel 6, but now you’ll find them everywhere. Earlier today I observed one of them completely saturating the part of 27 MHz reserved for RC cars/planes/drones using my SDR… from Canada.
- mwbajor 3y agoYour fellow canadian VE7KFM is one of the worst offenders: https://ve7kfm.com/profiles.html https://ve7kfm.com/profiles.html I've been yelled at by him before on 14.275, about 15 years ago. He's still at it.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoby saturating, do you mean they deliver so much power that they effectively create a dynamic noise floor below which normal users fall, and are thereby lost signals for most receivers? i don't have equipment to fiddle with but i'm fascinated, and not shocked at the behavior.
- dicknuckle 3y agoExactly. I'm told there is at least one listening station that measures their power at distance, and they are trying to make sure their signal reaches these listening stations and nobody else's. I've heard at least 5 going at any given time. They play looped samples of their own voices with a few audio effects added on, then run that through the most powerful amplifier they can manage to build.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoIt’s like RF nerd narcissism with those people. Bizarre.
- willcipriano 3y agoAccording to this they are guys driving around in cars: https://www.reddit.com/r/cbradio/comments/2fpwsk/so_what_do_they_talk_about_on_channel_6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cbradio/comments/2fpwsk/so_what_do_... Found a video of it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B3uX8Ks5tBo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B3uX8Ks5tBo
- theogravity 3y agoI did, and it's not the football Superbowl, but a term coined for a group of people who seem to just shout nonsense 24/7 on a CB channel?
- dicknuckle 3y agocorrect. it's the CV superbowl.
- mwbajor 3y agoYes, but has a major purchaser of spectrum complained? No, because its CB and they're not interfering with AM/FM broadcast, first responders, aviation or cellular bands. Therefore, nothing will get done and I doubt the FCC is even monitoring it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 3y agoCould you use KiwiSDR to time difference of arrival triangulate? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CrKTm0wbRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CrKTm0wbRU https://www.rtl-sdr.com/kiwisdr-tdoa-direction-finding-now-freely-available-for-public-use/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/kiwisdr-tdoa-direction-finding-now-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17414699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17414699 ("HN: Using KiwiSDRs to locate HF radio transmitters and numbers stations")
- kmbfjr 3y agoThat may work as a starting point for groundwave, but anything skywave is WILDLY inaccurate. That “tool” needs to go away. Time and time again people get accused of causing interference because their station falls in the center of the heat map and the person using completely fails to understand what it is they’re seeing. I was so annoyed at this going public that I pulled my Kiwi off the internet. Nice experiment, interesting code problem of synchronization, failure to let the public use it.
- retrac 3y agoOne of the properties of shortwave is extensive multi-path propagation. Much of the signal goes the shortest route - and a small amount of it goes all the way around the world and arrives the long route, tens of milliseconds later. And at every point in between too. This is why shortwave AM radio sounds so hollow/resonant/unique - RF echoes stacked on top of each other, all slightly differently timed and distorted, arriving by many paths. This can be adapted for, somewhat. For that sort of application (triangulating from multiple passive fixed receivers scattered over the continent) confidence to less than within 50 miles would be hard to pull off. Though if you do get that kind of fix with some confidence, you can drive around -- when you're fairly close to a transmitter of that power (within line of sight), it's hard to miss it. Practically, few of these types transmit continuously. (10 kW is quite the power bill.) If they're only on the air for a few hours, with changing locations, it's going to be difficult to find them.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoSounds like https://www.he360.com/products/rfgeo-radio-frequency-signal-mapping/ https://www.he360.com/products/rfgeo-radio-frequency-signal-... might be a better fit in this use case.
- kmbfjr 3y agoNot buying they’re running 100,000 watts, nor much over a few kilowatts. Which, isn’t in any way acceptable for a service that limits AM to 5 watts. Splatter isn’t indicative of large amounts of power, just an RF amplifier going very non-linear.
- bob1029 3y ago100kW ERP would make more sense. A transmitter that actually consumes 100kW of electricity would be a monster.
- BuildTheRobots 3y ago> A transmitter that actually consumes 100kW of electricity would be a monster. Before we switched to DTV from analogue, the TV transmitter tower near me was broadcasting FIVE 870kW channels. Admittedly these were between 600-700mhz and I'm not sure if that's ERP or not, but "monster" sized RF transmitters were surprisingly common.
- bob1029 3y agoOh it's common, just not something you could casually hook up in a residential setting. You'd need access to 480v/3ph service to do this realistically. Moving 100kW at residential voltages to a single device is not happening. Your wires would have to be cartoon-sized.
- nixgeek 3y agoThis is a 50kW AM tower in some amount of detail — https://youtu.be/Aax-ehkRTnQ?si=Hy0YklPl06XM4tfR https://youtu.be/Aax-ehkRTnQ?si=Hy0YklPl06XM4tfR
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cf1241290841 3y agoApparently this is the kind of hardware they are using. http://www.xforceamps.com/item/Straight-64Pill---Krazy-Xtreme-Duty---64KW-M-338 http://www.xforceamps.com/item/Straight-64Pill---Krazy-Xtrem... > Straight 64Pill - Krazy Xtreme Duty - 6.4KW-M > Together they can draw up to 1280amps total off your mobile. > The combined output power of the two units is +16000w PEP when supplied with enough electrical power. edit: Larger one from 10 small ones with a maximum ampere draw of 980. http://www.xforceamps.com/item/Straight-480Pill---Krazy-Xtreme-Duty---480KW-M-415 http://www.xforceamps.com/item/Straight-480Pill---Krazy-Xtre... > Straight 480Pill - Krazy Xtreme Duty - 48.0KW-M > Maximum Recommended Dead Key Output 12000w > The combined output power of the Ten units is +130000w PEP when supplied with enough electrical power. edit1: Also https://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/if-your-128-pill-amp-isnt-enough.180754/page-2 https://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/if-your-128-pill-amp-isn... >Puts 48kW amp in car, gets effective radiated signal no better than a couple of kilowatts does due to the fact the car is a crap ground plane to start with. >Someone commented that commercial AM stations are limited to a couple of kilowatts more. If you look at the antenna ground system AM stations use, there's a whole lot more metal involved than is in the body of a car. edit2: Video from a smaller car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOT63GUdQDc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOT63GUdQDc edit3: More specialized cars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daKDu6FT2Xs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daKDu6FT2Xs edit4: Truck that claims 60kw dead key output https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1YWke8cseg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1YWke8cseg
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- Robotbeat 3y agoSpaceX voluntarily has initiated brightness reduction in response to concerns from the astronomical community. They did a similar thing for radio astronomy (although there is at least some limited regulatory teeth here, unlike the brightness thing which has no regulatory teeth). https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBestPracticesSatelliteOperators.pdf https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBe... I don't know why people just assume nothing will be done. SpaceX probably just wasn't aware.
- gumby 3y ago> SpaceX probably just wasn't aware. They filed a Supplier's Declaration of Conformity without actually measuring unintended emissions? Seems a bit hard to believe, and rather disturbing if so. It's not like Part 15 Subpart B is in any way obscure!
- svnt 3y agoIt is not uncommon for this to happen. It is also not uncommon for a version of a device to pass emissions, being modified during the testing process to do so, but those changes never make it back into the production BOM. Or if they do, the production build is never re-qualified.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago> SpaceX voluntarily has initiated brightness reduction in response to concerns from the astronomical community. SpaceX knew their satellites would cause issues and didn't do anything with the early starlink satellites. After extensive outrage they claimed they had "fixed" things but the reductions were trivial and have done little to address the problem. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-dark-satellites-are-still-too-bright-for-astronomers/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-dark-sate... https://www.astronomy.com/science/starlink-satellites-disrupt-cosmic-studies/ https://www.astronomy.com/science/starlink-satellites-disrup...
- schiffern 3y ago
- colechristensen 3y agoThe FCC regularly hands out five and six digit fines to violators. https://www.fcc.gov/enforcement/orders https://www.fcc.gov/enforcement/orders
- alexey-salmin 3y agoExcuse me, what? What is the point of doing this?
- calamari4065 3y agoTo argue over who has the bigger dick, basically
- schiffern 3y ago>Don’t hold your breath on anyone doing anything about it. Maybe you meant, "don't hold your breath on regulators doing anything about it." From the original study[0] that found unintended emissions from Starlink: >The authors are in close contact with SpaceX, and the company has offered to continue to discuss possible ways to mitigate any adverse effects to astronomy in good faith. As part of their design iteration, SpaceX has already introduced changes to its next generation of satellites which could mitigate the impact of the Swarm transponder emissions. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15672 https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15672
- iancmceachern 3y agoI've heard very different stories about FCC enforcement. I wonder of its band specific?