Wire Cutter Question

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KE0SKN

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I own a simple Home made pole tower to my Alinco DR635T radio. A person keeps cutting my antenna wire. Twice I fixed it. this time i ran it in side the pole and underground to my house then to my radio. My question is A. how can i report him (local pd doesn't care). B. What kind of trouble will he get in?
 

n9mxq

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All I can see is trespassing, and vandalism... B. depends on local laws...

Just be glad he's a cutter and not a pinner... Now pinning coax...that's evil....not that I've ever done it...(cough)
 

N0GTG

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How about running your coax inside of conduit? That would make it pretty tough for any vandal, and provide a lot of weather protection, too. Available at any home improvement store like Home Depot, Lowe's, etc., and not very expensive.
 

PVPD730

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As far as catching the vandal, set up surveillance video where the problems are occurring. If you got a video cam, it's not that hard to do. If you don't have that, you can get security cams pretty cheap from Radio Shack.
 

mjthomas59

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The reality is what you have already done is about all you can do. Eliminating the temptation for a would-be vandal is pretty much always the best thing to do. If you could conclusively prove who was doing it and catch them in the act then there is a chance that he could be charged and convicted of property damage and trespassing. Would a prosecutor issue charges for that? Who knows! Regardless both charges are misdemeanors and the person wouldn't see any jail time, and probably not any probation time either. Worst case for the suspect is pay a fine to the city/state and pay you restitution for the damage.

If you had to buy an adapter to fix the cable then you would get the cost of the adapter.

And did I mention the aggravation of testifying in court, the reality that most court cases don't go to trial for 6+ months, and the high probability of the prosecuting attorney in your city/county just flat out refusing to prosecute him.

Beyond that, there may be federal laws in regards to tampering with radio towers but unless you are talking about state-owned or priority radio towers I doubt they would apply(i.e. tornado sirens, public safety radio towers, etc.). IF you knew who it was you could always sue them in civil court for the damage, if your damage is substantial enough. Good luck!

On the bright-side, your coax is shielded from the weather(and vandals) now which should prolong its life!
 

Thayne

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You could run a dummy wire on the ground hooked up to a fence charger. You would probably hear at least a small scream when he cuts into that--:) Or a large scream if he "pins" it--
 

KE0SKN

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I know hows doing it. I saw him come the second time and cut it. He runs a C.B. with high power and a tower in his back yard. I'm guessing I'm interfering with his rig. I had a Friend hows a ham tell me that I can call the FCC and that it a Federal offense to tamper with a ham's rigs. I want to know if this was true. The police don't care. I called them and they took a report over the phone and thats all I herd. No patrol officer came nothing. IPD don't care for this type of call.
 

mjthomas59

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I don't know that i'd go as far as to say they don't care. The question is what can they do? The answer is nothing. They can't take your word for a person messing with your stuff without any sort of proof beyond he said she said. The best case is for property damage, however if your damage is a 3 dollar adapter or a homemade splice then how much can you expect the police to care? The perfect scenario is they charge him, find him guilty in a year, and then he pays you 3 dollars in restitution for your adapter that you needed to fix the coax. Would that make you feel any better? Unlikely.

As far as federal crimes, who knows. The IPD don't enforce federal laws, and there are no state laws which have been violated in regards to your radio tower atleast that I knw of, or it being more of a crime since it is damaging your ham tower/antenna. Calling the FCC is about all you can do to find out if it breaks a federal law, and even then I wouldn't expect them to come running to your aide and try and charge this person with anything.

You did the right thing by putting your coax inside the piping. Now what you need to do is turn your neighbor in for running too high of power on CB, or any other radio related violation you can think of that he is committing.
 
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Alliance01TX

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As above post If you put a video cam or buy a 'fake' security box (looks like real sec cam) and post a NO Tresspassing Sign - HIGH Voltage and a note with small font near the tower that says something like: " do not look up ! and you know the idiot will, then say Smile you are on Camera! Perhaps if it is Joe-Bob-CB'r (assuming he can read) might get the hint...also a motion detector flood-light (home depot) might 'enlighten' him too...

Bill
Dallas, Texas
 

KE0SKN

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UPDATE!!! I put a WEB CAM pointed at the tower so next time I will catch him in the act. I devoted a 200G hard drive to record. A friend gave me a security video software so i can record the action.
 

jerk

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I ran it inside the pipe underground into my house. I solved the problem for now.

Fix the "other" problem.
Why is this person cutting the coax? Because you are interfering with his TV or causing some other problem, most likely, fix that and the problem solved.
 
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mancow

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Good luck talking to anyone at the FCC.

Also, there isn't a US Attorney in the land that will indict someone for messing with someone's ham setup. It just isn't going to happen.


I know hows doing it. I saw him come the second time and cut it. He runs a C.B. with high power and a tower in his back yard. I'm guessing I'm interfering with his rig. I had a Friend hows a ham tell me that I can call the FCC and that it a Federal offense to tamper with a ham's rigs. I want to know if this was true. The police don't care. I called them and they took a report over the phone and thats all I herd. No patrol officer came nothing. IPD don't care for this type of call.
 

KE0SKN

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I'm messing up on his cb station i guess. he has a directional antenna pointed my way. he also using high power too. I told him that the interfearence is caused by his setup and not mine. I'm talking on 148.150 Mars channel at 50watts. him is on ch23am pushing 100watts or more. He made becuase he claims he can here me. I have a cb too and can't her me when i talk on vhf..
 

mjthomas59

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148.150 is the Repeater Output for CAP Channel 2 according to my limited research found here: http://www.carmachicago.com/cap.html

This website also identifies 148.150 as a Civil Air Patrol frequency. http://www.w4rfd.com/bandplan.html

So.. if you are indeed in CAP then you would probably have a better shot at speaking with the FCC about damage to your tower. If you are not in CAP then.... umm..... uh oh.

I have to assume that you are, who else would you be talking to on that frequency anyway? Or you just typo'd the frequency.
 

n9mxq

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Since he identified the frequency in his post as
148.150 Mars channel
I'm sure he's aware of the legal ramifications associated thereto...

What in any of his posts in this thread leads anyone to believe he's NOT MARS/CAP?

Take a breath, and relax..
 

KE0SKN

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sorry guys it was 148.650 simplex. my call sign AAR7BG/T , Also IPD officer came by yesterday and did a follow up on my call. He took my report and paid a visit to the guy's house and told him to stay way from my house. So thats it i guess. I hope I will not have any more problems from him again. Thanks for you Alls input and suggestions. thank you. As I tink on this subject when I first wrote this post i was hot and steam. Now after I fixed the tower It coast me $3.83 and about one hour of my time. It was just an inconvance to me. yes it could be wors but sence IDP came and did some thing about it. Im happy for now. Lets hop this is the last.
 
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