VIA ULIS FLEMING
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304434104579378994224188328?mg=reno64-wsj
FCC Agents Trace Radio Interference to Doorbells, Videogames,
Blankets
By
Thomas Gryta
March 11, 2014 10:30 PM
When Signals Interfere With Cell Towers or Radio Broadcasts, Agents
Crack Down 
A
Woodstock, N.Y., animal sanctuary's electric fence caused interference.
Photo: Derek Goodwin
by Thomas Gryta
A federal agent
who shows up unannounced at a building along a Texas highway might be looking
for any number of things: illicit drugs or immigration violations, say, or
illegal firearms.
Or fluorescent lights.
Which was what the agent
had in mind who walked into the Perfect Cuts salon in San Antonio last July. The
lights were violating communications regulations.
The agent had used
signal-tracking equipment to home in on the offenders and told the owner, Ronald
Bethany, that his lights emitted radio signals that interfered with an AT&T
Inc. cellphone tower.
That violated Federal Communications Commission
rules protecting airwaves licensed to AT&T, the agency determined. Mr.
Bethany didn't have a license to operate on that frequency, the FCC agent told
him, so his fixtures needed to go.
"I told them 'OK, but who is going to
pay for this?' " Mr. Bethany says. "I've got to use the
lights."
Interference can be serious business. In 2012, hedge-fund mogul
Philip Falcone's wireless venture, LightSquared Inc., filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy after the FCC determined it would interfere with GPS
signals.
The mixed signals aren't always so weighty. In recent years, the
FCC has issued warning letters directing people to stop operating cordless
phones, television sets and wireless cameras.
Last June, an FCC letter to
a Springfield, Ore., address warned that "harmful" interference had been traced
to the property and that the operator may have to "cease operation" of the
device: "possibly a bad doorbell transformer."
That 2013 letter lists
other common culprits, including aquarium heaters. Similar letters in 2012 went
to several operators of videogame consoles. "This unresolved problem," the
letters typically warn, "could result in a monetary forfeiture."
The FCC
can demand fines up to $16,000 a day or $112,500 an incident from people who
aren't FCC licensees. Offenders usually rectify problems, the FCC says, often
working them out with whomever is complaining.
Managing the radio
spectrum "has been part of our core mission since the inception of the FCC in
1934," says Julius Knapp, head of the agency's Office of Engineering and
Technology.
Most anything electrical can violate. "Incidental radiators,"
in FCC lingo, are devices like electric motors that aren't built to generate
radio signals but do anyway. "Unintentional radiators" are designed to generate
signals within devices like computers but aren't supposed to broadcast.
"Intentional radiators" like cordless phones can transgress when they transmit
outside intended frequencies.
Agents arrived at Shelton's Auto Lube and
Auto Wash in Fortuna, Calif., in 2008 looking for signals disrupting AM
broadcasts. They traced them to Shelton's carwash equipment.
"I didn't
know anyone listened to AM radio anymore," says owner Odell Shelton. The FCC
told him a driver complained about car-radio reception. It took a few days to
find and fix the problem.
The government doesn't much care why
interference happens. To the FCC, noise is noise.
In a 2013 letter, the
FCC wrote to the owner of a plasma TV set after a ham-radio operator complained
to the agency of interference. "Continued operation of the television," warned
the letter, from which the TV owner's identification is redacted, "is not legal
under FCC rules."
It doesn't matter how far bad signals extend. The FCC
pressed Perfect Fit Industries into a consent decree in which the Charlotte,
N.C., bedding maker agreed to develop a compliance plan and pay a $7,000 fine in
2005 after some of its electric blankets caused interference, FCC documents
show. Perfect Fit didn't respond to inquiries.
"Just because it doesn't
go very far," says the FCC's Mr. Knapp, "doesn't mean that we don't need to fix
it."
Ham-radio operators are a frequent source of complaints. A 2012 FCC
letter told a Pomona Park, Fla., resident to stop using a well pump that
conflicted with amateur-radio frequencies.
A 2009 letter warned Woodstock
Farm Animal Sanctuary, Woodstock, N.Y., that its electric fence was causing
interference for a ham-radio operator and noted it had been warned
before.
"We didn't want our rambunctious, dark-colored, 2,000-pound
steers pushing down the fence, wandering onto the adjacent state road and
causing a deadly accident," says sanctuary co-founder Doug Abel.
"Right
next door, our ham-radio-loving neighbor has a 60-foot high antenna that would
allegedly pick up a clicking sound from our fence." He installed hardware to
damp the signals.
Private signal sleuths, too, hunt down errant
emissions. Jay Jacobsmeyer, president of wireless-engineering consultants
Pericle Communications Co., investigates interference at 150 to 200 cell sites a
year, mostly for wireless clients. His team last November faced a puzzling
signal in San Diego that would pop up, disappear for weeks, then
resume.
Using directional equipment, it identified a cordless phone on a
yacht that occasionally visited, Mr. Jacobsmeyer says. The skipper agreed not to
use the system in port.
Radio hobbyist Tom Thompson of Boulder, Colo.,
last year tracked a signal using a homemade contraption. After knocking on the
suspect's door, he traced it to ballasts on marijuana grow-room lights. He says
he built a filter that the grower agreed to use.
Ballasts are frequent
offenders. Makers of the components, which regulate electricity to bulbs, test
them for FCC compliance. Some interfere anyway.
Ballasts earned
Brookfield Office Properties Inc., the real-estate company, a citation last
month at one of its Los Angeles buildings where lights were interfering with a
Verizon Communications Inc. cell site. The FCC had warned Brookfield in May,
asking for progress reports, but it received none, the new letter said. It
warned of fines and possible equipment seizure or jail time.
A
spokeswoman for Brookfield says it tries to resolve issues regarding its
properties but doesn't comment on "regulatory matters."
The lights at
Perfect Cuts in San Antonio came from General Electric Co., which in 2011 found
some of its ballasts caused interference, a spokesman says. GE has offered to
replace those ballasts free of charge.
Mr. Bethany says he initially
declined GE's offer. But when an FCC letter after the agent's visit mentioned a
possible $16,000-a-day fine, he swapped ballasts.
He still doesn't see
why he needed to, given that his 18-year-old shop predates the cell tower. "I
was here first."
Write to Thomas Gryta at thomas.gryta@xxxxxxx
| Reply via web post | Reply to sender | Reply to group | Start a New Topic | Messages in this topic (1) |