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

I didn't know that Candid Camera has come back.

Aha, some sort of pervert is he? You can always tell with that type! The police need to be checking his hard drive and seeing if he's growing anything in his loft. Discusting!

Ah, but OP hasn't 'chosen to spew out illegal electronic interference' as you so eloquently put it.
The only choice she's made is to buy and use an adaptor from a big retailer. Which has this unintended side effect.
Someone actively trying to block someone else's WiFi on the other hand has active malicious intent.
Dramatic statements like 'the world' doesn't obscure the fact that an individual acting in retaliation would be far more likely to face criminal prosecution for their activity, compared to someone just using a product for its intended purpose. It's not 'the world' some vague concept acting of its own accord.

Again, simple solution, he could have just bought a new adaptor. He's happy, OP's happy everyone happy.

No, of course I wouldn’t allow an unqualified person to perform work on my boiler. However, if someone I knew to be a ham radio enthusiast, was able to demonstrate that something in my home was interfering with their equipment, I’d probably take it at face value. They all use radio waves, and PP have explained how easily this can occur. Sure, they might be playing silly games, or it could be an elaborate scam or bizarre bullying tactic, as some have suggested, but I think that’s highly unlikely.

Also @GasPanic your examples are brilliant actually because there have been cases where people burning things etc in retaliation for supposed smoke from a specific source have been prosecuted over their target.

But OP didn't know this man. He turned up at her door with an antenna, out of the blue.
You're really gullible if you believe someone that just turned up...no wonder scamming is big business

Years ago when I was a teenager, I could hear the police radios through my video recorder but only at certain times of the day.

People thought I was a fruit loop and made jokes about tin foil hats to me and my mother wouldn't even entertain just listening because she was so adamant I was lying.

One day I'd witnessed a theft and had to give a statement, the police officer who came to take my statement had to use his radio to communicate and was a bit when heard his own voice come out of the video recorder. He'd said there must be an illegal signal nearby that someone is using that's interfering or something and or something along those lines and asked how long it had been happening, when I told him months and months my mother said "why didn't you say something sooner?"

I wouldn't be so quick to call him mentally unwell like pps are.

Even if it does have a CE and/or a UKCA mark on it doesn’t mean it is genuine.

There was a recent documentary highlighting the use of fake safety marks and certificates on goods imported from China.

I agree.
They are usually older men, deep sixed in Physics- My neighbours son was a Radio Ham who was tragically killed when a woman ploughed into him at a junction.

He has his radio numbers on his Gravemarker.

If alive, he’d be approaching 70.
Harvard used one of his inventions .

I would try and solve the issue, @emmalinewre
He may well pay for a new adapter.

These are normally good guys.
Pre net.

Agreed, occasionally this site badly undermines my faith in human nature.

He literally lives across the road. If she didn’t know him before, she does now. What’s he going to scam her into, buying a different wireless module? I guess that could work, sounds like a lot more effort than it’s worth.

@PerkyPeachMaker re your previous post- I'm not spineless, I'm just a decent person. If I'm causing someone else a problem, I like to try to fix it, if I reasonably can.

the fact you wouldn't have even opened the door say a lot about you.

he's not a vigilante 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️he's a neighbour trying to resolve a problem he's having without reporting it & creating work for other people.

It's seemingly her thing that's faulty, so yes, she should put some effort in to try to fix it.

She won't know if a new one will cause an issue or not, but if it's actually got the correct kite mark it's a good start.

well he couldn't have bought a new one in advance of knowing what the problem was. If the OP can't get this one replaced through the place she bought it from, then she can tell him that & say she's happy to try another one if he goes half on it.

Hes only having this problem because she's installed something (seemingly) faulty.

someone doing something that causes you a problem isn't 'coming up with a problem' . It IS a problem.

@emmalinewre

I'll preface by saying I'm a certified HAM 'no code tech' operator in the US. I don't know UK rules. We use it for family communication, I'm not a 'hobbyist'.

Yes (here) there are protected frequencies, but they're generally frequencies used by law enforcement, astronomy researchers, govt frequencies etc. It is absolutely illegal to use or interfere with those frequency. In fact, some ham radios won't even allow you to transmit on them.

To my knowledge the HAM frequencies aren't 'protected' in the way that those 'official' frequencies are, but 'jamming' a frequency and/or using HAM frequencies without a license is illegal. Whether or not your device causing interference would be considered 'jamming' the frequency I don't know. But if it is you certainly weren't doing it intentionally.

If you want to use your device, I'd suggest you either contact OFCOM yourself and inquire or plug it back in and if your neighbour complains again, tell him to go ahead and contact OFCOM and let them sort it out.

FWIW HAMs aren't 'just' hobbyists. They're often the only source of communication in cases of disasters. HAMs were invaluable during the recent devastation and flooding after Hurricane Helene.

And we aren't all 60+ year old men, either.

Err no.

Ultimately if you are doing something against the law, it's your problem not the person who suffers from the consequences of your actions.

Finally a sensible reply, from someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

@AutumnLeaves24 @VeritableChestnut @GasPanic This is how things should be dealt with by involving the relevant authority.
Also if OP wants a refund replies from them will carry more weight than 'dude with an antenna said it's faulty'.

The whole point of this thread was what OP should do despite the digressions it's really this.

Yes, but he was being neighbourly & trying to fix it between them without running to the authority.

Is it a Phillips Hue bridge by any chance?

That could take months and months, at the taxpayers’ expense. The neighbour isn’t making an outlandish claim. As others have mentioned, this is something that reasonable neighbours could resolve amongst themselves, quickly and cheaply.

Personally, if my neighbour came round and told me I was unwittingly doing something that affected their enjoyment of a hobby and they took the time to explain how and were reasonable about it then I’d bend over backwards to sort it out 😏

The Op can go old school and switch the lights on with a switch, it’s hardly a massive ask!

Finally a sensible reply, from someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

The irony! (And confirmation bias )

How is sending a simple email going to take months and months?

You know how these things usually go, the wheels of bureaucracy turn very slowly. It’s hardly going to be a priority for Ofcom, is it? Meanwhile, the neighbour will be deprived of his hobby due to nothing but bloody-mindedness.

There's no irony here, most PP I replied to thought I was just against the man because of his sex and supposed weirdness.
PP is also a ham radio operator (well yeah, I supposed it's ironic I choose to believe her) but has also said that OP can contact the authorities.

Once again I don't see why everyone is pushing OP to believe the man, but also OP's actual question was 'can Ofcom prosecute us for using this'. The answer to that question is obviously to ask them.

And for the THIRD time (or fourth? I've lost count).
There is a very very simple solution to this.
He could buy the OP a new adaptor.
Vetted by him, 100% original, safe.
Problem solved.

I've said this multiple times yet nobody has managed to explain why this can't be done. You're all fixating on how OP has to do what he says or he'll lose access to his hobby.

But you keep saying to ignore the daft man, and let Ofcom do their worst. Make up your mind.