The Federal Communications Commission regulates radio transmission in the United States, and sets limits on power, frequencies, and spectral purity of those transmissions. In the case of the Amateur Radio Service, the service is largely self-regulating. This means that you may be able to enlist some help from the Amateur Radio Relay League (http://www.arrl.org) and/or a local radio club in determining if your neighbor is doing anything wrong or if there is something you need to do because your equipment has inadequate radio frequency immunity.
For starters, I recommend getting a good surge suppressor/noise filter/power strip to plug all of your audio and computer equipment into. These are usually less than $20 at Wal-Mart and other stores. Make sure that the outlet strip specifies that it has both RFI filtering and surge suppression. You should do this even if your neighbor doesn't have a transmitter, just for lightning and power line surge protection. Otherwise, you are running a risk of equipment damage that can cost you much more than these power strips cost. It is also unlikely that you will get any help from anyone unless you do this much.
If that doesn't solve the noise problem, try asking your neighbor for help. He probably knows more about this than you do, and he would probably be glad to help anyone who is nice to him about it.
By the way, have you encouraged your boys to get the Amateur Radio merit? Maybe your neighbor could help with a demo of ham radio for your outpost. :-)
Your brother in Christ,
Michael, ham radio call sign no0h.
At 21:48 12/14/2001 -0500, RICE wrote:
I am having a problem with a neighbor with a ham radio.
I t seems at times usually late at night his broadcast come over my computer speakers, a tape player, once or twice my television and even one time a radio in my sons room that was unplugged. About 2 months ago I call the township people about this being they gave me such a hard time this summer for permits on a swimming pool wondering what the regulations where on this structure. The tower is about 120' tall using 12 guy wires to hold it up. The cable feeding the tower is probably 10" in diameter. This huge thing about 500 to 600 yards from my home but yet he still fries my house . The response I got from the township was I would have to buy filters and other equipment to stop his signals from entering my home. I find this to nonsense that I would have to spend money because he is probably doing something wrong. I stopped at his house and ask him if he was broadcasting hot or what and his response was that he was perfectly within the range that the FCC allows and that I am too far away from him to receive any interference. Strangely enough though the interference stopped until tonight, when it has started all over again . I looked for the filter that I was told to buy and nobody has them, The FCC told me that if I could get a meter reading of his strength output that they could take a complaint but they do not have the manpower to monitor him.
Short of practicing sniper shots at the coaxial cable I was wondering if anybody had experience with ham radio and maybe could tell me of a way
that I could jam his signal.
Russ Rice
Lebanon Assembly of God
Outpost 249
