Help Defeat Ill-Conceived FLA Radio Law
 

David Eduardo wrote:

The FM pirates in South Florida, the Boston area and others are Haitian
immigrants broadcasting locally and illegally. there is no way a station
form Haiti could interfere on the FM band with any US station. Haiti is over
the horizon... way over it.

When you're at 40,000 feet, the horizon is a long way away. That is
the real problem with dumping trash into the aviation nav/comm bands....
listeners at high altitude may have line of sight from a long way away.

I have heard Haitian FM pirates in NYC, though. And I would not be
surprised to see the same thing in other cities. And I am surprised they
aren't shut down, since anything that is easily audible on an FM radio
in a taxicab shouldn't be too hard to DF, even in an urban area where
multipath makes DF harder.

The problem in FL is that there are so many pirates, they endanger lives in
many ways, including unsafe towers, electrical hazards, RFI hazards and
interference to other services, like airports. If the FCC can not act fast
enough, then local authorities are required to look at other aspects and
act. The FCC laws basically cover spectrum use, not endangerment.

That still doesn't give them jurisdiction. Just because the FCC is totally
ineffective at enforcing their own rules doesn't allow anyone else to
enforce them.

In the case of endangerment to aviation channels, the FAA is also empowered
to enforce them. A call to the Frequency Management Officer at the Atlantic
City International Airport is apt to get a truck out within a few days.
They are also pretty overworked, but a lot more responsive than the FCC.

I think a better thing to do would be for the individual state governments
to start beating on the FCC. Although perhaps this law is intended as
a step toward that.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."