[1827163]

Absolutely ridiculous. That makes me want nothing to do with the hobby, period.

These hams are behaving like animals with a dominance hierarchy. With "newbs" and status in that hierarchy based on license class / callsign. And reacting aggressively, completely out of proportion, to outsiders who intrude on their territory. Akin to a dog with behavioral issues. This attitude in amateur radio is so common, we are supposed to be better than that.

Many years ago I built a high voltage power supply to drive a metal halide or sodium lamp from batteries, and one of my coworkers who was a radio ham, was threatening me that I could get fined thousands for interfering with amateur radio. That was my direct experience, and I have heard this kind of thing happening so many times to others.

It's always the hams making the bulk of complaints to the authorities, as well. And if I remember correctly it's actually tying up FCC resources...

[rolph]

i was a member of a ham club for a brief span.

you are describing many of the reasons i walked away and went solo.

[1827163]

Makes you want to use powerline Ethernet for everything, which happens to stomp on the HF radio bands. Perfectly legal to install and use, a nice replacement for all those trailing cables.

Yes, civil disobedience is how these draconian rules get changed, assuming everyone does it. Notice ham antennas down the road? Then get some powerline Ethernet adapters, ensure they are fully regulatory approved for the country you are in.

And that is perfectly legal civil disobedience too, which is likely to cause utter hell for that amateur operator, who likely supports this draconian punishment for such a trivial matter.

[PhasmaFelis]

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]

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

This guy here is being fined $24,000 for what is essentially petty harassment, which is ridiculous.

[PhasmaFelis]

> 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]

This is why. 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]

Even better if some product came onto the market, that used wideband powerline communications for its functioning, and practically everyone's got one. I think some electric car chargers might do so in the future. That would not go down well with amateurs, at all! When everyone down the street would have, in effect, legal jammers.

MaxLinear have some nice ones, complete with datasheet, it also works in MIMO mode, not for just powerline but pretty much anywhere.

https://www.maxlinear.com/document/index?id=23257&languageid...

Update: I think solar inverters are causing big problems here already, so it's only a matter of time now as they become increasingly popular. So we can kiss those amateur radio enthusiasts and their utterly draconian punishments goodbye in the long term.

https://hfdxarc.com/technical-pages/how-to-reduce-electromag... https://www.pa9x.com/how-the-replacement-of-solar-panel-micr...

[1827163]

It's been like this already, for quite some time (!), at lest here in the UK, VDSL2 to thank for that: https://rsgb.org/main/technical/emc/vdsl-interference-report... So it's already being jammed, with the noise floor going up, although not to the point of being unusable.

[rolph]

i dont want to actually attack thier media, the cultural experience felt toxic, and the hobby felt needlessly constrained.

there is angst between commercial operators and ham radio; its seen as wasted bandwith that should be used to make money; every transgression is ammo in possible future decisions to de allocate ham spectrum.

it wasnt my idea of fun. know the rules and you can avoid attracting attention, from FCC or [foxhunters] looking for unlicensed operators breaking convention,rule,or law. there is that greyzone for consumer electronics to swing your elbows a little more.