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

One other small point I forgot. If Ofcom were to investigate, OP might be liable for the cost of the investigation.

I doubt you’d get investigated but I wouldn’t really want to use faulty electricals every day, if it’s emitting a signal strong enough to be illegal there’s clearly something not quite right. He’s just a guy trying to do his hobby although he could’ve gone about it in a more friendly way without threats!!

So the guy mentioned above, whose TV reception was affected by what turned out to be a neighbour’s drill, was he unwell too?

More likely the company that sold the item or imported it

Go around your house and count the electronics you own and use.

Every iPad, Xbox, smart watch, smart washing machine, smart lightbulb, microwave, ring doorbell, smart TV, house alarm system, even a hairdryer or fluorescent light bulb. How far can a hobbyist go in demanding you facilitate his hobby?

Turn off the alarm system? after he's cased your house with his little screen thing? (I'm a cynic)

The rules apply to emergency services and not to disruption of hobbyists' fun.

This.

I don't think you should have let him in, OP.

This is the site where women routinely complain stridently about children playing audibly out in the street at two in the afternoon, or youths kicking a ball outdoors, or children with the audacity to bounce on a trampoline in their own garden and shout or laugh while doing so.

Everyone thinks they have the right to the life they would have if they moved to a remote island, while living in a three bed semi 88 miles from the nearest field.

The rules apply to everyone. The electromagnetic spectrum is tightly regulated to prevent chaos. The whole point of ham radio frequencies, and every other frequency allocation, is to keep out everything but the intended sources. So if a malfunctioning or non-compliant piece of equipment is generating stray interference, the law requires it to be rectified. If a neighbour's television developed a fault and knocked out your Wi-Fi and mobile reception, how long would you put up with that?

up to no good or just making the whole thing up, because reasons.

Spidey senses. We all know what he gets up to.

This.

Not this at all. By law, none of these devices should generate interference outwith their approved frequencies.

It's not illegal to monitor these frequencies. It's illegal to broadcast on them. I doubt very much this gentleman is broadcasting, he would know that his license would be pulled and he'd face heavy fines (at least in the US).

We live in wildfire country and often tune in to firefighting frequencies if we hear a lot of aircraft circling in our area. We would NEVER transmit on these frequencies, but many of them are blocked for transmission anyway.

There are actually websites that allow you to monitor via the internet. Where I live the most frequently used is 'Broadcastify'.

The law is only interested in interference with protected frequencies.

If this man wants to pursue his hobby in a built-up area where his neighbours can reasonable be expected to buy and use all sorts of electronics, and if UK customs is accepting shipments of dodgy electronics from overseas, he's being unreasonable in expecting them to allow him access to their homes in the first place, and also in expecting them to unplug devices they might need in daily life.

How far can he go in demanding - with threats of reporting, no less - that his neighbours unplug devices and facilitate his hobby?

How about a medical device? Some sort of monitor? At what point does his hobby come before the health or safety of his neighbours?

I do too. So handy. My kettle is also linked, so it's almost to the boil when I get to the kitchen in the morning.

And they probably don't.

The law applies to all frequencies. Ofcom defines harmful interference as:

• it degrades, obstructs or repeatedly interrupts anything which is being broadcast or otherwise transmitted by means of wireless telegraphy and in accordance with a wireless telegraphy licence, or a grant of recognised spectrum access or otherwise lawfully.

Legitimate ham radio operators possess such a licence. No one is saying he's entitled to access his neighbours' homes, or instruct them to do anything. However, he is perfectly entitled to not have his neighbours generate interference on bands reserved for use by ham radio operators. They can either resolve it amicably, or he can complain to Ofcom.

According to PP who work in the industry, they often do.

This man lives in a built-up up area of the UK presumably, and not the Australian bush or Florida or some small town in tornado alley.

His radio activity is 99% likely to be merely a hobby and done for fun. Requiring his neighbours to facilitate it with threats of reporting for non compliance is cheeky fuckery, imo.

I think - though will be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong - that none of those things that you mention should be causing interference elsewhere, If it is happening, something is faulty and needs to be dealt with. That is as true of a faulty medical device as it is of anything else - not that anyone would expect a life saving device to be turned off immediately for non-urgent interference, but it certainly should not be ignored long-term if it is affecting other people.

There’s some arsehole replies on here

we had something similar in our street but it was interfering someone’s freeview

Don’t know who there were but they reported it and someone did come round to investigate and traced it to an appliance in a house across the road

The arsehole reply people would probably say, that was fair enough, can't have hard-working folk missing out on Corrie and Strictly. Whereas because it's an older guy with a somewhat niche hobby that's being affected, he's being totally unreasonable and deserves nothing but contempt.

I'm not saying he should 'require' his neighbours to facilitate it. All I said is that he's not 'broadcasting' on restricted frequencies, he's merely listening in.

He has no right to demand entrance or demand that OP unplug her lights. But if he feels a neighbour's equipment is causing interference on a HAM frequency he's within his rights to report it to the relevant authority.

HAM frequencies are restricted to HAM operators only. And interference (intentional or otherwise) is wrong.

It's not really an issue of whether the OP is interfering with his hobby.

It's more an issue of whether they are breaking the law.

No the neighbour cannot demand that people let him into their house and unplug devices. Although he can quite easily localise the emissions without this via triangulation.

What he can do is report them to the enforcement authority for breaking the law. In the same way anyone can report someone to the police for drink driving. As is usual, the enforcement authority will then go through a process of determining whether the law is actually being broken and the severity.

In general it wouldn't really matter what was causing the emissions, although it's possible certain types of devices are exempt. Generally though it would not matter if it is a medical device or not. If it is emitting on protected frequencies it would be breaking the law and would have to be turned off. The fact that one person has an interference producing medical device does not trump the need for planes to communicate safely with the ground.

In practice all quality medical devices will be stringently tested for emissions and if a device was found to cause major emissions and was not faulty then it would probably cause issues for the manufacturer who would have to redesign. If it was found to be emitting interference due to a fault then it would have to be replaced.

He's offering them a chance to make alternative arrangements before pursuing enforcement.

@PerkyPeachMaker

A man's smoking at the table next to you. You tell him he can't. He tells you to buy him a vape or bring an environmental health officer, and he'll do as he pleases until you do.

You think you'd be the unreasonable one in that scenario?

I'm sure they'll be out there like a shot.

Then they'll have a word with Customs for allowing the importation of a dodgy device.

Or maybe the device works perfectly well - the local police, fire, and airport comms people haven't been beating down her door after all - but is sadly located across the street from someone with an overweening sense of entitlement. He must have watched in horror as his isolated house surrounded by miles and miles of green fields was slowly built up over the years, and dreaded the inevitable interference from all the devices people tend to buy. Or maybe he moved in three years ago and still expects all the neighbours to rearrange their expectations and discard or replace their electronics to his satisfaction. Who knows?

Are you saying if the problematic device was a medical monitor, the OP would still have to unplug it, because amateur hobbyist rights trump all other interests?