Well, what a sticky wicket this turns out to be. This is turning into a lawyers viper den and damping all the enjoyment of DXing. What rules are military, police, EMT, etc. freqs allocated under? There are YouTube recordings of all these agencies. The fact that RadioReference encourages and documents such activities seems to be on the verge of liable so I'm going back to my little shack and close the door!
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ridgescan
Member
I share the dissapointment with ya-but I felt since nobody else was piping up regarding this little caviat, I had better do so. For your awareness.
This in no way should hinder an ounce of your DXing fun. You apparently have to be wise about who you share it with.
Doesn't change the fact that discovering this FM skip DX is a real kick!
This in no way should hinder an ounce of your DXing fun. You apparently have to be wise about who you share it with.
Doesn't change the fact that discovering this FM skip DX is a real kick!
Token
Member
I think you might be reading too much into it. These kinds of discussions always center on the theoretical. Something might be technically illegal but not enforced or enforceable. Naturally, I have not done an exhaustive study, but has anyone ever been prosecuted for monitoring (not for profit or theft of content) broadcast auxiliary stations on HF? I have not seen anything to indicate they have.
By the way, theft of content. I have an opinion, not founded on any fact other than observation and questioning why the regulation exists, that the reason these particular rules are in place is to stop one station or potential station from stealing and reutilizing the link / audio / programming of another station.
I see these signals all the time in the 26 MHz region. I monitor them occasionally to see where they are from, particularly when a new or unusual one pops up on the waterfall. Even if monitoring them is illegal how do you know the transmission is not one that you can legally monitor until after you tune to it and find out it is not a two way communication? Tuning to the frequency is not illegal (even if the regulation does appear to say monitoring the station is illegal), as the regulation appears to say monitoring two way traffic is legal.
As for military, I know of no regulation that would prohibit a person from listening to those transmissions. Police and EMT monitoring has some interesting potential gotchas with regard to how the information is used, but in general monitoring, and documenting that you have monitored, is apparently not illegal with a few exceptions.
Don't sweat it. DX and enjoy. The Internet is a Worldwide community (even if Radioreference is predominantly US centric). Some nations have VERY strict regulations on what people can and can’t listen to. For example numbers station, some of the more active participants in hobby numbers station listening are also in nations with regulations that say their citizens cannot monitor such stations. But in the US almost anything you can tune to in the HF spectrum appears to be legal, this thread just happens to hit on one of the less well known theoretical limitations.
T!
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