MTM wrote:
The Portland Office of the FCC sent TWO local Yachats motels - notices of violations - for cable leackage within the aircraft bands (121.2625 mhz ??) Now the public can hear Air Band signals better -- in the Yachats area.
That is cable channel 14 video, so the audio would not sound very good at 121.5. I would assume one could tune up to the audio freq (125.7625) and hear the sound if you were in range.
I wonder how this was discovered, I don't know if the Coast Guard monitors 121.5 all the time but it they do it would be easy for a chopper to hear it on the way by.
I had a service call one time for interference on a local fire channel when they were within a block of their station. I could see a signal that was close to 6 megs wide centered close to 154MHz that was around -90dBm with a rubber duck at the station. I noticed a cable TV truck a few blocks from the station working on a line, so I assumed that was where it was coming from, but I was wrong. As soon as I got a block down form the station the signal had dropped down below -100dBm. I went back and drove a bit the signal got very strong outside ham's house that was directly behind the station. The home owner was retired and he saw me out on the street and came out to see what was up. The great thing about hunting RFI and dealing with a ham they understand what is going on. With a signal that was that wide I assumed it was a video signal so I did not think it was coming from his ham shack, I was still thinking the cable TV system as I had seen before. Anyway the home owner was great to deal with and after he went in and started to turn off circuit breakers the signal disappeared. I went in and found he had a TV extender that he got of off ebay. It had a transmitter that was attached to the output of his cable box that sent the signal out over a VHF high channel and it was putting out a hell of a spur below it's operating channel. It was not FCC type accepted and he was very happy to disconnect it. There had been a few reports from some of the firefighters from that station that the siren did not go off at times, but they replaced a relay not thinking it was a radio issue. It was bad enough at times they waited till they got out a block or two before going in service so dispatch could be heard clearly.
jh