Radio obsessive threatening to report us to Ofcom..?

[emmalinewre]

Hope this is ok to post here!
Got a knock on the door a few days ago from a man carrying a full sized aerial under his arm..
He said could he walk around the perimeter of my house with his radio frequency thing to check where some interference is coming from?

Turns out he’s a radio person (uses aerials and such to communicate with other radio fans, just a hobby but seemingly a rather serious one)

He said he’s been picking up lots of interference when trying to use his equipment and has tracked said interference down to our house..

He told me to turn some lights on and off and showed me on his screen thingy (?) how its an adapter we’ve put on our kitchen cabinet lights which is knocking out his frequency. Said we’d need to remove the adaptor else he’d have to report us to Ofcom as its a protected frequency, and also interefering with aeroplane signals or something?
Anyway, he’s the neighbour across the road so we did it and he hasn’t come back, so we assume the problems is fixed.

However. Is this reasonable?
He said the adaptor is probably Chinese imported fake CE marked and not legitimate which is why it has started to fail and mess with signals (we installed it six months ago and only now is there a problem)
But we bought it from a really quite high-end retailer - its not fake or dodgy.

Do we all just have to do whatever the local radio ham tells us to do, including removing perfectly legitimate and useful technology in our own homes?
We don’t really have that much of a problem with it - but it still feels a bit cheeky - and we do miss being able to control our kitchen lights remotely, as the rest of the house is set up that way.

Can ofcom really fine us for using a light switch?

Thanks!

Bemused, Cambridge

The OP doesn't actually know it's that adapter though, and neither does the neighbour. Really he should report it to Ofcom so they can investigate and then either seize it or say no, it's something else/there's no issue? I'd be happy enough to accept Ofcom's decision, but not that of a random neighbour who for all I knew had fixated on my house as a 'problem' for his hobby for no reason whatsoever.

Has the neighbour visited everyone in the street, or just fixated on op?

Why on earth did you let him onto your property in the first place? I won’t even let meter readers in unless they have an appointment.

If it's a protected frequency for air traffic then why is he broadcasting/receiving on it?

No one has established anyone is breaking any law.

Was it a cheap Chinese adaptor ?

If it really is causing him an issue, I'd want to remove it, but I don't know if that's likely

That's not what OP said. He'll be using the ham radio frequencies, which are protected, and shouldn't be used by IoT devices.

From the original post, it sounds like OP does know it's the adapter. The neighbour, using their expertise, singled it out as the cause, and when it was disconnected the problem disappeared. Sure, OP can switch it back on and wait to see if Ofcom gets involved. Or, they could be a good neighbour and install a properly-certified adapter instead. From what PP have said, this seems to be a common issue.

But they do seem to have established that their legitimate hobby is being unreasonably disrupted, by something generating interference that it shouldn't. Your response? Tough luck!

But we bought it from a really quite high-end retailer - its not fake or dodgy.

Obviously this doesn't mean it wasn't made in China, but equally she hasn't just bought some cheapo off ebay or amazon. I'm quite surprised that you wouldn't think it was quite fanatical behaviour for a neighbour to randomly turn up brandishing antenna and asking to scan your house? I wouldn't be relying on what a hobbyist with questionable equipment said, especially when he was making demands about my home. It's pretty entitled behaviour, and ultimately he doesn't actually care about interference with aeroplanes or Ofcom, he just wants it to stop interfering with him.

I'm not sure I'd be able to resist switching it back on now the dust has settled and see if he comes back. Call me a cynic or a bad neighbour, I don't mind, but only Ofcom themselves would settle this once and for all for me.

I'd be buying one of those adapters for every item in my house 😅

Why?

If it is the device causing the problem then I would be happy for the neighbour to buy a new one and pay to have it installed, If he’s not happy to do that then he can shoot off 🙂

I think you might be surprised that Ofcom can and would take action. I can understand the OP seeking clarification as it may on the face of it seem an odd request. However, OP has been given clarification by credible people who know what they are talking about. It is not an uncommon issue.

I really don't understand the people who are ignorant of the law around this so vehemently declaring it is wrong or insulting the poor guy who quite justifiably raised the issue.

I thin the OP is fortunate her neighbour isn't a typical Mumsnetter who would never come round and engage with neighbours. They'd just have contacted Ofcom and watched them arrive from behind the curtains.

Given the fact that if the guy has even half decent skills he could probably take someones wifi down as and when he felt like it in a highly difficult to trace way probably not the worlds best idea.

Actions have consequences. Cooperation is better than confrontation.

He's chatting utter crap. Tell him to go ahead a 'report you'.
A hobbyist ham radio enthusiast's 'requirements' do not take presidence of the need for someone to use electric lighting in their home.
If he continues you should warn him you'll report him to the police for harassment.

Why assume his equipment is questionable? Of course he wants it to stop interfering with him, and the hobby he pursues. Who wouldn’t? If the interference turns out to be illegal, he’s perfectly within his rights to object. And making him wait umpteen months for Ofcom to investigate, seemingly because he’s a weird man with a pathetic, geeky hobby, is just petty.

Someone’s ‘requirements’ to have remote control kitchen lighting do not exempt them from the provisions of the Wireless Telegraphy Acts and Regulations.

How ironic seeing as he's the one complaining about reporting other people for signal interference.

@ForPearlViper I have two main problems.
a) The guy isn't in a position of authority to tell anybody to do anything. Posters have said that the scenario is likely. But none of us KNOW for certain that's he's correct.
Correlation doesn't imply causation. He's isn't qualified or certified in any way.
He could have shown OP any old screen.
It also sounds like a great way for scammers to case a property/ get people to do things.

b) All OP has done is buy an adapter from a proper retailer. How is she to know that any alternative won't cause a problem? Also do you seriously think her writing to customer services about this is going to be taken seriously.

If the guy truly wanted to be helpful he'd help with all this instead of just telling her to 'not use' something in her own home.

@VeritableChestnut crikey. So the ham radio man can force her to turn off her lights?

No, but the government can. And not turn them off, but disable the non-compliant wireless module. Why let it get to that stage?

It's not the lights that are the problem, but the device she's using to control them remotely. She still has lights.

Do you have a habit of automatically assuming that hobbyists knows what they're doing? Would you allow, say, someone claiming to be a gas engineer but with no qualifications or certification whatsoever, to tell you what to do with your boiler?

You cannot have it both ways. If something is important enough to have laws etc it should only be dealt with by the appropriate people not a random member of the public with the antenna. If it's not important then what's the fuss.

P.s. r.e geeks .. I am a geek, married to a geek, work in a geeky field. Precisely why I know how much crap we can spout. And how confident a lot of geeky men are in them being right.. although they're often not.

Hmm, apart from everything else I said about authority figures. Maybe they can work out whether this is a more widespread issue?
After all of this is really illegal/blocking a protected frequency/etc and the OP has bought a fake adapter, there's a bigger consumer rights issue.

Not really ironic at all.

Simply pointing out that if you choose to spew out illegal electrical interference that affects other people, other people can choose do the same thing to you.

And like many forms of local environmental disturbance, noise pollution, smoke, smells etc, it can be very difficult to get something done about it, or even find the source of it in this case.

So far better to try to live in harmony with the world rather than stick two fingers up at it. Because the world may decide to stick two fingers up right back at you.