Recent FCC activity in NJ

Tech792 · Dec 1, 2011

rmosier · Dec 2, 2011

Job security push in anticipation of gov't budget cuts?

K9WG · Dec 2, 2011

It seems the FCC does enforcement either by location, type, or both. For awhile they were hitting the retail stores real hard on selling non-digital TVs without the warning stickers. The cable operators have always been an easy target for leakage and EAS violations.

radioman2001 · Dec 2, 2011

I'd say it all has to do with money and nothing else.

Essexscan · Dec 2, 2011

They're looking for a particular Pain-in-the A$$ in Essex County who lurks on the radio, hope they find him too. He's a serious problem and needs to be made an example of, gives all us radio/scanner guys a bad name

radioman2001 · Dec 2, 2011

What has that got to do with tower painting and signage enforcement? I can see going after problems of interference, but that usually requires someone to actually work. From my experience the FCC takes the path of least resistance. You don't have to chase a tower, it kinda stays put for you. LOL. What you have here is a budget deficit and here is how they intend to help lower it. It is kinda nice to see governmental agencies taking it up the *** as they do to us when they are short on cash.

Essexscan · Dec 2, 2011

It's just like when the Cops setup a Motor vehicle inspection checkpoint, if you have any other infractions, warrants or paperwork problems it snowballs when you get stopped. Were they all fined too or just notiied of the Violations?
it's how most Gov't divisions work, when the Bear is awake it's dangerous. It's not awake long but it gets around when it is. When the G is around they blanket the area to justify being there. Ever deal with the EPA? they're like duck hunters with a shotgun, when they're in the neighborhood everyone gets hit with atleast one pellet

OCO · Dec 2, 2011

radioman2001 said:
What has that got to do with tower painting and signage enforcement? I can see going after problems of interference, but that usually requires someone to actually work. From my experience the FCC takes the path of least resistance. You don't have to chase a tower, it kinda stays put for you. LOL. What you have here is a budget deficit and here is how they intend to help lower it. It is kinda nice to see governmental agencies taking it up the *** as they do to us when they are short on cash.

Of course, there is the one case with the tower 11 miles from where it's supposed to be..

radioman2001 · Dec 3, 2011

And it took them this long to realize it? When the FCC started tracking towers, they didn't create the database from their records, they used our hard earned cash to do it for them. They made everyone pay an outside agency to confirmed the lat/long of the tower, and THEN they put it in THEIR database. I had the FCC say to me that the World Trade Center didn't exist, I know this is true now, but not in 1991. I have sent a warning to all the tower operators that I know in the Tri-State area that the FCC is on the prowl looking for cash.

jaymatt1978 · Dec 3, 2011

Without wading into politics can I point out the finess for the "violations" are passed onto the taxpayer. This is where I find yes the FCC and the laws are neededd but this is really nitpicking on sopme of th e violations they're sending ou t

rmosier · Dec 3, 2011

Re: The guy "Lurking" in Essex county. Is he transmitting? I ask because you said it makes scanner enthusiasts look bad. If he's just listening I don't see the problem.

rmosier · Dec 3, 2011

The "Close Call Band" selections still don't Up/Download correctly. The 800 Mhz box becomes unchecked in Proscan, even though it's checked in my scanner.

Essexscan · Dec 3, 2011

rmosier said:
Re: The guy "Lurking" in Essex county. Is he transmitting? I ask because you said it makes scanner enthusiasts look bad. If he's just listening I don't see the problem.

He's transmitting, rmosier. Alot and on Fire dept Mutual Aid/County Wide freqs to pretending to be different depts. i've heard him many times interfere in radio traffic calling for time/radio checks and stepping on transmissions. I know his voice even when he tries to hide it, so do some of the dispatchers. i said he makes scanner guys look bad because anytime this stuff happens people not familar to the hobby think all the scanner guys/gals do the same thing and like to "play" on the radios. we know 99% of us do not condone or think its funny to do that but a large part of the general population think 600$ scanners and 1000$ plus ham & commerical radios are "CBs" still end rant

kb2vxa · Dec 3, 2011

Back to the subject at hand, you can't put cash value on public safety. Most were tower violations and this is where the FAA is involved too. Without proper anti-collision markings a tower becomes a hazard to air navigation and northern NJ is heavily traveled airspace. Some of these towers are in medium to low altitude glide paths for the New York area international airports.

Moving right along to Comcast Cable leakage, most of it was in the aeronautical band which can interfere with cockpit comms, again a major safety issue. Cable providers are required to do an annual flyover inspection to detect leakage in the band so apparently Comcast is doing something wrong.

Before you blame it on a moneymaking scheme ask yourself how much your life is worth. When something happens you're quick to say money can't bring back the dead, try saying it before somebody dies.

kf8yk · Dec 3, 2011

radioman2001 said:
I'd say it all has to do with money and nothing else.

radioman2001 said:
I have sent a warning to all the tower operators that I know in the Tri-State area that the FCC is on the prowl looking for cash.

Not one of the voilation notices listed by the original poster has a single dollar in fines. The intent of these violation notices is to call attention to a problem & get the responsible party to correct it.

All the offenders have to do is fix the problem & write a letter to the FCC, no payment to the US treasury is needed.

902 · Dec 5, 2011

Looks like I'm late to the party. I look at this as the equivalent to red light cameras. The economy is squeezing the Commission and they are short-staffed in seems like all areas except the top floor at the Portals. The Commission does not like to fine public safety agencies, yet sometimes a public safety agency selects to take a shortcut or maybe more often rotates people out of assignments so much that they no longer have any one person who's exclusively responsible for radio if they don't have a radio systems manager. Most of the time, a public safety fine is a repeated violation that was disregarded, or a dangerous situation that wasn't immediately complied with (like a transmitter with spurious emissions that were going across the aviation band). But, if you happen to see an unmarket tower along the way, why not pick the low hanging fruit?

"Talkers" are a complex issue. They're usually very smart young people who apply themselves in the wrong direction. Years ago, we had one in the midwest who, unfortunately, was also a serial arsonist borrowing someone's ID and calling in the fires he started on an "opened" radio. He was ultimately identified by how he pronounced words ("a"s and "the"s, especially; all edited together from dispatch tapes... we all talk funny in one respect or another) and subsequently arrested. Nothing good comes from having unauthorized transmit capabilities.

radioman2001 · Dec 5, 2011

I can agree on the safety aspect, but instead of giving NAL's why not a letter reminding all radio licensees of their responsibilities. Why, because you can't make money if you let the wrongdoers know what their issues are ahead of time. Safety yes, money no. Why not allow the FCC to do a curtesy inspection ( by invitation, like OSHA does) every 10 years or so to highlight issues before they become safety problems. A big problem with P.S. is that the person, persons responsible for keeping up with licenses and other things like tower maintainence usually is not a radio person. Also they retire and don't replace them, for whatever reason, budget, politics etc. My county police lost their license because the local amtaure radio club was responsible for keeping all their licenses up to date. (a leftover from a previous administration, because it cost them nothing) As a result of losing their license and grandfathering on that channel it cost them nearly 1 million dollars to redesign their entire radio system to eliminate interference to co-channel users for 75 mi.
Now as far as fines, the FCC like most governmental agencies don't work for free, if they go through the motions of inspection, they are going to fine you.

902 · Dec 6, 2011

radioman2001 said:
I can agree on the safety aspect, but instead of giving NAL's why not a letter reminding all radio licensees of their responsibilities. Why, because you can't make money if you let the wrongdoers know what their issues are ahead of time. Safety yes, money no. Why not allow the FCC to do a curtesy inspection ( by invitation, like OSHA does) every 10 years or so to highlight issues before they become safety problems. A big problem with P.S. is that the person, persons responsible for keeping up with licenses and other things like tower maintainence usually is not a radio person. Also they retire and don't replace them, for whatever reason, budget, politics etc. My county police lost their license because the local amtaure radio club was responsible for keeping all their licenses up to date. (a leftover from a previous administration, because it cost them nothing) As a result of losing their license and grandfathering on that channel it cost them nearly 1 million dollars to redesign their entire radio system to eliminate interference to co-channel users for 75 mi.
Now as far as fines, the FCC like most governmental agencies don't work for free, if they go through the motions of inspection, they are going to fine you.

They had a ham club manage their license?! Wow! There are services out there that an agency can hire to manage their callsigns, but they aren't free. They are also not very popular and don't make a whole lot of money considering how many licenses are out there. Thing is that even if a frequency is in use - and stays in use - once a license is expired, the FCC keeps it in queue for about a month and the coordinators look at it for 1 year (although there was talk about deadlining it after 6 months). If there's no renewal, say "hello" to your new neighbors, who may just be the next town over. IF they would be allowed to license, it would be over the concurrence of the newly (and properly) licensed entity. I know one agency up around you that has a number of sites, very odd antennas with tight patterns and heavy rear-lobe shielding, and ERPs in the single digits for fill-ins just because they have to go co-channel (probably with the same agency and frequency you were thinking about) across the river from them. Licenses are like gold and nobody who wears gold seems to appreciate that.

On the other hand, it's a lot like natural selection - if you let your license expire and it has to be recoordinated, and it ends up being "right-sized" by much lower power and pattern/contour stipulations, chances are that your power and antenna height were way too high to cover the couple of square miles (if that) that some of the boroughs or villages have. Hypothetically, a 0.9 square mile borough does not need 100 Watts into a 6 dBd antenna on top of a 18 story high rise to cover it, espeically if being that high exposes the system to interference from frequency re-use in Pennsylvania and Long Island.

kb2vxa · Dec 6, 2011

"I can agree on the safety aspect, but instead of giving NAL's why not a letter reminding all radio licensees of their responsibilities."

Perhaps you're confusing a Notice Of Violation (NOV) with a Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL)?

Recent FCC activity in NJ

Tech792

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rmosier

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K9WG

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radioman2001

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Essexscan

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radioman2001

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Essexscan

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OCO

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radioman2001

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jaymatt1978

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rmosier

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rmosier

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Essexscan

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kb2vxa

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kf8yk

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902

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radioman2001

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902

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kb2vxa

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