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of another HF radio sign up today and thank you for the support. Here's
another story about a CB operator, not a HAM but a CB operator who
received a fine for harmful interference and for refusing to have his station inspected.
Basically, he just ignored the FCC. I'm going to ask you to look
at it from a little bit of a different perspective than what the last video
I did suggested. So let's take a look at this right now. The
last video I made was about a CB operator who received a three thousand dollars
fine for failing to allow the FCC to inspect his radio equipment. They came
and knocked on his door and he said, well, I have to leave
for a doctor's appointment. Apparently they couldn't verify that he did not let them
inspect his CB radio and they didn't have a warrant, so they didn't come
in and they didn't do that. Now, you guys put a lot of
really good comments in that video. We're gonna get to that here in just
a minute. This story today is very similar, except it details some actual
harmful interference that was created by this CB operator. So here's the thing.
Here's the question I want to ask you today. If you're the guy next
door, or you're the guy two doors down or across the street from this
CB operator, and you are the one experiencing harmful interference from someone else,
doesn't that violate your rights? Everybody's in the comments is talking about the rights
of the CB operator not letting him in the door and not getting a warrant.
And I got a lot of comments saying, well, if he received
a fine, then they're violating his Fourth Amendment rights. Anyway, I don't
really think I agree with that viewpoint. I see where you're coming from,
though, But what if you're the guy next door? What happens then?
The title here at this story, which I will link in the description blow
is cbe radio owner receives fine for harmful interference and lack of responsiveness. The
owner of a CBE citizens vand station was recently issued a notice of apparent liability
of forfeiture an NAAL for eighteen thousand dollars eighteen thousand dollars as a result of
interference caused to his neighbour's electronic devices. Okay, so look at this from
the neighbor's standpoint. I've read through most of this letter, and I don't
think this neighbor was a ham. So it wasn't like there's, oh,
Sadham reports you to the FCC. No, that's not what happened here,
so keep reading. The owner was fined for failing to make his CB station
available for inspection by the FCC and for failing to comply with the restricted hours
imposed on the operation of his CB station following official notification from the FCC restrictive
hours hours imposed. So they basically told him, look, you can't operate
between these these hours and this you know at night time, you can't operate
after ten pm, you can't operate before six am. I don't know what
it was because they didn't say, but they told them they couldn't operate during
a certain time of day. I find that odd. So now, okay,
now, I'm feeling for the CB guy telling you when you can and
can't operate a radio. I don't know, I don't know, all right,
let's keep going. In response to a complaint that a CV station was
causing interference to a neighbor's telephone and TV reception, the FCC attempted to conduct
an investigation of the station in January of twenty twelve. So this story is
a few years old. But this is in the twenty first century, you
know. I thought that with all the digital devices that are out now,
ledtvs and Internet devices and no longer like rabbit ears on your attendant, that
kind of thing, I think the interference from radio is much less than it
was one or two decades ago. But this was still in the twenty first
century, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen. At that time, no one answered
the door. In March of twenty twelve, the FCC issued a warning letter
to the owner and directed the owner to contact the FCC to schedule an inspection.
The letter also warned the owner that if interference continued, the FCC would
impose restricted operation hours on the station. The owner never responded to the warning
letter. In May of twenty twelve, the FCC again sent a letter to
the owner, this time directing him and anyone else at his residents not okay,
So here's the time. It does say it below not to operate the
CB station from eight am to eleven thirty pm wow until the owner contact the
FCC to schedule the inspection. The owner again failed to contact the FCC.
The FCC continued to receive complaints of interference in the neighborhood and sent yet another
warning letter to the station's owner in June, reminding him of the restricted operating
hours put into place and directing him to schedule an inspection okay in the neighborhood.
So the way I read that is he was interfering with more than one
person, So now he's interfering on numerous persons rights. You have the right
to watch TV and talk on the telephone your own home without interference, right.
I think most of us would agree with that. In October of that
same year, agents from the FCC again attempted to conduct an investigation. They
monitored multiple radio transmissions in the citizens band and use direction finding techniques to confirm
that the transmissions were emanating from the owner's residents. When the agent's knocked on
the door. No one answered, but the transmissions immediately stopped, indicating the
owner turned off the CB station while the FCC agents were at his doorstep.
At the date of the NAL, the FCC had received no responses of the
owner of the CB station. Section ninety five dot four two three Alpha and
Bravo of the FCC's Rules provide that if an FCC informs a CB operator that
a station is causing interference, the CB operator must comply with all instructions issued
in an official FCC notice and must comply with any restricted hours of operation issued
in such a note. In addition, section three h three of the Communications
Act and section ninety five dot four four two six Alpha of the SEC's Rules.
At PRICB, owner stations make their stations and records available for inspection by
the FCC. So those of you who tend to think that you give up
your Fourth Amendment rights when you get a HAM radio license, well, first
of all, you don't, Okay, I did a video about that.
You can you can go check that right here did a video about that just
a couple of weeks ago. You don't give up your rights, But this
blurb that you agree to when you get a HAM radio license is listed in
the Part ninety five document of the CB Radio Operators FCC Rules and Regulations.
Okay, so by purchasing a CB and keying up that transmitter, keying up
that microphone, you are automatically agreeing to the same sort of requirement for inspection
of your station. And this guy was obviously interfering with his neighbors. So
do you think that it was okay for the FCC to knock on this guy's
door and request an inspection. They didn't kick his door down, they didn't
enter without a warrant, They didn't confiscate any equipment. It says over and
over again in this article that he refused, that he wouldn't answer the door.
They couldn't even get in his house. So do you think they had
the right to do that since multiple people in the neighborhood were affected by his
interferre ring CB radio. The article ends here saying the base fine for failing
to allow inspection radio equipment seven thousand dollars. The FCC found that an additional
seven thousand upward adjustment of this find was warranted because the owner had continually ignored
letters from the FCC and notices, though there is no base defined designation for
failing to comply with FCC notices, so, in other words, there's no
monetary value designed for a failing to comply with FCC orders imposing operational regulations on
CB station. The FCC found that the nature of this violation was similar to
that of failing to respond to an official FCC communication, for which there is
a base of four thousand dollars, which FCC included forceture amount in addition to
the eighteen thousand dollars fine. The fccs requiring the owner to submit a some
worn written statement within thirty days of the NAL confirming compliance with the restricted hours
of operation and specifying a day and time when the FCC can inspect the CB
radio station. And that's pretty much the end of it. So it doesn't
do it ever, do any follow up. It doesn't do any I don't
know what happened to this guy. This ten years ago, I got comments
on my last video that was a three thousand dollars fine for failing to allow
inspection of a CBE radio station from another user, and I got a lot
of varied comments that some people were in favor of that, some people were
against it. Some people were like, well, you're not getting into my
house without a warrant, And I'm like, you know what, good you
should not allow government agencies into your own private home without a warrant. I
completely agree with that statement. It's the best statement I've heard about this situation.
Okay, And in this specific article that I just read to you,
that didn't happen. They knocked on his door, he ignored, he refused
to answer the door, he refused to respond to their letters, and for
all intents and purposes, it doesn't look like anything happened. I mean,
they issued a fine, eighteen thousand dollars fine to him. Is that going
to affect him later in the future when he goes to apply for a new
home loan or a new car loan, or some sort of line of credit,
new credit card? Is that going to sit on his record somewhere?
If he gets pulled over by a police officer for speeding or for tail light
out, is that government notice going to be on his record somewhere? I
don't know. I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't want something like
that on my record, but I don't know if that would affect what he's
doing or not. So perhaps perhaps not. And I want to read to
you some of these comments that was on my last video that I really do
agree with. Some of them are most of them are very good. There's
one or two I don't agree with, but most of them are pretty good.
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So, these are a lot of comments that I got from my three thousand
dollars fine for refusing radio inspection. This is the one that I have pinned
at the top. This is this is a pretty good comment here. It
really doesn't matter if you we have a hand license or any other kind of
license. And that's kind of my point for the whole video. This video
and the video you're watching now and this previous video. Both if you're operating
a transmitter that is causing interference, you can expect to knock on the door.
Depending on service. When you operate a CB radio, you must operate
within the rules, whether there is a license or not. For example,
Part fifteen operators of the CB rules allow you to operate AM or FN broadcast
transmitter at a half a WAT. I don't think that's true. I think
it's AM or FM broadcast transmitter at a half a W. Well, first
of all, we don't broadcast in radio, we transmit. Broadcast is a
general term that means you're like an FM radio station, so a station you'd
listen to your car. They are broadcasting because they're a one way You can
listen to them, but you can't talk directly back to them. So radio
operators, cbgmrs and hand radio operators, we don't broadcast, we transmit,
and we also receive because it's two way radio. It's a semantics term.
It doesn't really matter, but I understand what this gentleman is saying, but
at a half a wat, that's not correct. It's actually four watts.
That's the limit. If I understand what he's saying that it's four Why that's
the limit on CBE radio? When you boast the power he might mean boost
the power. When you boost the power to ten or twenty watts, you
were in violation. You don't have to let them in, but a fine
will be likely. They don't just show up. They have to listen,
measure bandwidth, power, et cetera. They aren't guessing at it. Sometimes
they are guessing at it. That's why they ask for an inspection. You
can complain it. FCC record and transcribe what you hear. The FCC has
to see it for themselves. In the broadcast business. Now he's talking about
broadcasting, they can stop by during normal business hours, and normal business hours
are when the stations on the air. So ANO there's twenty four to seven
for most radio stations. They never show up at night, as unlikely they
will kick down the door. FCC people are engineers. If you don't cause
the interference, you won't hear from them. The FCC today is concerned with
wireless so I thought that was a pretty good comment there, so a couple
other good comments down here. The FCC can do whatever they want, his
opinion, They can refuse to issue you a M radio license. That's what
they did to me. My extra class license has been five years in waiting
now. Every time I check it says pending. I don't know what the
story is behind that comment, but I would like to know. Thirty years
of being a Ham radio operator, I've never heard of anyone being refused a
license. One of the test questions on the Ham Radio exam is that anyone
can get a license unless you're the representative of a foreign government. So unless
this guy's a representative of a foreign government or have some kind of really wicked
thing on his criminal record, I don't know. They rarely bother Ham radio
operators. So if your CBR operator just go get your hand license, then
will leave you alone, unless you're interfering with emergency services. I don't think
that that's true. If you're a Ham you have to take a test that
presumes you understand a little bit about radio operation, and you should understand about
spurious ebmissions and about band allocations and frequencies and power ratings. So you should
be able to understand that a little bit better than someone who just goes buy
as a radio, op the shelf and starts transmitting. I don't know how
accurate that that statement is. CB, as well as FRS and merger a
licensed by rule still following the REFCC rules. Also, the reason why the
Fourth Amendment does not apply here is that the inspection is a request, yes
that's what I said in the video, not a demand failure to allow.
It does not allow them to enter without a warrant, and the fine is
based on the violation of the license. Even for CEB, the FCC is
obtain warrants for searches and those are usually served by US. Marshall, Yeah,
most of the CBE radios today are illegal. You need to follow the
law. I agree with that. Okay, you want to in come back
with a warrant, Dwayne says, yeah, no, I'm good with that.
I mean, the point to that video, the point to my Fourth
Amendment video, to point the point to this refuse in inspection video, both
these CB refusion inspection videos, is that they never entered the home without a
warrant. They knocked on the door. This last guy in this story today,
didn't even answer his door and refuse to respond to their letters. So
what happened? I don't know. He never went to jail, at least
not in this article, so I don't know if that's really a thing or
not. I would like to see some follow up from some of these stories
that says, hey, after all, this transpired a year later, a
couple of years later, whatever, this is what happened to this individual.
Maybe he never did anything, Maybe he completely ignored it and they finally went
I kind of don't think they went away, since there were numerous people in
his neighborhood complaining about his crappy signal. Okay, he was probably operating too
much power and he probably didn't have his station grounded very well. Most of
the comments I got in this last video were from the viewpoint of the cbeer
operator. If you were standing in your home and the FCC knocked on your
door and asked to see your station equipment, whether you're a HAM CBE operator,
GMRS or anything, if that happened to you, if the FCC knocked
on your door, most people were like, well I wouldn't let him in.
No, you don't have a warrant I wouldn't let me in, and
I'm good with that. I'm good with that attitude. I would probably do
the same thing. I would probably allow them to inspect my ham radio station
because that's part of my license agreement. But my ham radio stations in my
hamshack. It's not in my house. I have a separate building in my
backyard with all my ham radio equipment and my antennas and towers right outside of
here, so I don't need to let him in my house. I can
let him in my hamshack, which is an extension of my home, true,
but it's not my actual home. So I would probably let him in
if they were polite and ast nicely. But a lot of you said you
wouldn't let me in. Okay, Well fine, okay, but what about
look at it from a different viewpoint. What about if you're the guy next
door, two doors down or across the street, and you're like, hey,
this guy. Every time this guy keys up, my TV gets all
fuzzy, maybe your WiFi router reboots. So whatever you're doing on the Internet,
just you got to stop because you lose connection on your laptop or your
smartphone loses connection in the internet because your router is rebooting because of a huge
RIF signal that pours into it. You've got, he says, telephone interference.
I assume that means landline. Most people don't have land lines anymore,
and I've never really seen a CBE radio or a HAM radio interfere with a
smartphone. But maybe you still have a land line. Maybe you have a
cordless phone. It could interfere with that. Maybe you have a touch lamp
on your wall and you see it kind of turn off and go through the
three levels of light low, medium, high and turn off again and turn
back on and kind of go low, medium, high and turn off.
Maybe if you ever see that, radios can do that. I used to
have a touch lamp and I got rid of it because I got tired of
My wife would be like, yeah, you turn the lamp on again.
I'm like, let's get rid of that stupid thing. So that's a thing.
But what do you think you would do if you were the one being
interfered with from a guy down the road that is, let's face it,
operating his CB illegally, because even if he's running the power that he's supposed
to be running, even if he's staying within the legal limits. Legal power
limits of the CB radio, causing harmful interference is not allowed. He could
probably have a four watt CB with a really tall antenna, which is totally
legal, that is not properly grounded and cause interference. So it may just
be a grounding issue. So what would you do if you were the guy
across the street? I don't know, put a comment below. I would
really love to hear comments at that regard. And if you like this video,
check out all the couple of these videos over here about other CB radio
stories and FCC inspection story seventy three