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

So my car is a bit smokey out the exhaust.

My next door neighbour isn't happy.

Should they buy me a new car ?

He sounds as mad as a box of frogs.

Ah, but is it actually smoky? Can you trust your next door neighbour’s senses?

I don’t know who’s more mad you or him? Get it back on, it’s nowt to do with him!

I just can't be bothered to answer the questions I was asked earlier and will just re-iterate I think this thread has taken an utterly bonkers direction.

Thank you to the sensible posters and those speaking up for radio hams and the very important role they can play. My Dad was one.

Just a small point re the neighbour. Fully fledged radio hams go through a process, in Dad's day it involved a test, to get a license to transmit. The license comes from ....... Ofcom.

If OP does think neighbour is a crazed idiot who wants to make her life miserable, she could ask about his license or check up on his call sign.

To all the lovely hams and their friends posting and trying to be helpful - 73. (Gosh I hope I got that right after all these years!)

The OP's main question is whether she has to do what this man tells her to. This is in property and DIY. Not AIBU or chat.

If you for example are parking your car blocking your neighbour's drive, I'd say you definitely have to move it if they ask you to. Even if well they aren't the police. You are obviously doing something illegal and blocking them. It's clear.

In this case it's not clear you're doing something 'illegal' but also, you have no way of knowing whether a replacement will cause the same issue. Also..for all you know..... something else might have been causing the problem that has since been resolved. It may not even be OP's adapter.

Therefore, OP is within her rights to check with the authorities. But also the neighbour can just buy her a new adaptor since it's seemingly interfering with his activities and he apparently knows what a fake looks like as opposed to the entire supply chain of a major retailer.

It's that simple.

This is very true.
Im not sure how it works, but have heard of Radio Hams being of massive help in disasters-

It tends to be a very serious occupation.
Pre internet they were the only people transmitting across the globe.
Remote outback places in Australia to cities in U.K.

Well I can either get it fixed or wait until they call the police on me and then we will find out for sure.

I mean it will probably wreck our relationship for the foreseeable, but what does that matter.

Its very useful when you go out to the kitchen with both hands full of stuff and can tell the lights to switch on. I have got lights linked to my Echo right round the house and can turn them on remotely, either just one, or some, or all, both when I am at home and also remotely using my phone which is a good security feature. You can also set up individual timers to make it look like there are people at home.

OP you definitely want to mention this and make sure he's licensed

How to Fix Radio & TV Interference From LED Lights This explains how to fix the problem

Why not just get a different adaptor?

@ForPearlViper
I think it’s a series of numbers(?) that is a call sign
That is what is on Christopher’s Grave.

His parents are now interred with him.

I definitely remember seeing a series of numbers (?) or alphanumeric engraved there.

super easy fix hey!

Apparently because he’s a (weird) man, and probably either up to no good or just making the whole thing up, because reasons.

What a bunch of Luddites!
Because you don't understand about radio waves, you assume that a man who is searching for the source of a measurable stray transmission is bonkers and ignorant and can be ignored and written off.

I’d be keeping a ham radio operator sweet if I were you.
What with landlines going digital, an EMP or serious CME could knock out all communications.

Ham radio people are the smart ones.

The EMP or CME would probably knock out all the ham radio equipment too, but let's not worry about that.

Many, many years ago, my dad had a visit from a neighbour who was trying to track down the source of interference on his tv. Turned out to be a power tool my dad was using for some diy. He bought a small piece of kit which suppressed whatever was causing the interference. Problem solved, no unpleasant aspersions cast on neighbour's character or personality, neighbourly relations maintained.

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.

Yes. RAYNET is a volunteer network of UK radio hams who will step in to keep communications going if other methods fail. A friend's husband was very much into amateur radio and was a member of RAYNET, and she too had a licence for a time.

Fine, but it’s not like Ofcom are going to cart you off to the nearest prison. They would presumably advise you what was wrong with your equipment and suggest a replacement that wouldn’t cause problems.

If someone I didn’t know turned up on my doorstep demanding to scan my house and threatening to report me, I’d tell them to go ahead. I’d then assume that if it was that important, something would be done by the relevant authority not the random bloke from down the road.

He sounds unwell

Of course it is!! She's ruining his hobby & just because she wants to turn her kitchen light on remotely 🙇🏻‍♀️

Because you don't get his hobby?

Imagine if the interference caused your mobile data to stop working ( that cba happen if the interference is at the right frequency) - you would be bloody pissed off to discover your neighbours light switch meant your mobile no longer worked indoors

Just cause it's invisible doesnt mean it's not real or important

He sounds unwell

He sounds like a man pursuing a perfectly legitimate hobby trying to resolve an issue in a neighbourly way without recourse to officialdom.

But of course this is MN, where 'If I haven't heard of it, and if it doesn't conform to the way I think things should be done, it's automatically wrong and suspicious, especially if it's a man doing it, and extra-especially if it's an older man.'

@Bogans

more polite than I was thinking