I know nothing about your buddy breaking the fcc rules. Yes, forfeiture was a bad choice of words. 399 authorized them to do whatever they wanted. That is all i was asking.
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EVER HAD A VISIT FROM THE FCC ???
- Thread starter unit_399
- Start date
In the early 80s, we had a neighbor complain that we were bleeding over onto his intercom system. The first hint of this was an anonymous (no return address) letter sent to our house complaining about our radio, but too vague for us to figure out who sent it or what the problem might be. We were running a stock, untouched, barefoot TRC 448 mobile with a Turner +3 base mic hooked up a Radio Shack .64 wave omni. It was 100% legal with no kicker ever, so I didn't give the letter much thought. Sure enough, we got a visit one day a few months later from "Uncle Charlie".
The gentlemen were nice enough. I was about 18 or 19 and studying for my novice license at the time, so I was probably a little better versed than the good buddies of the day who bought their Kraco CB right after watching Convoy. I proudly showed them my rig, which I had quite neatly and professionally installed: tie downs, spacers, silicone seals, water-tight coax-to-antenna connector, plastic tubing covering my exposed RG-8, etc. I had even replaced all of the hardware on my .64 with stainless steel. Damn, my set up looked good! I think they were shocked that a teenager had put so much thought into setting up a CB.
My TRC 448, which they did ask to see, had never been opened. That was pretty obvious to anyone looking. I also volunteered that I had a TRC 451 in the sailboat out back, and explained that the whole point of our set up was to be able to communicate from house to boat by two way radio.
They got it. The gentlemen asked few questions, asked to see our station license (I always used our call sign), accepted my explanations and did not even bother to test my radios. They obviously had been listening to my transmissions because they threw in some nice compliments about the sound quality of our station and my radio etiquette.
To their credit, I think: (1) they got a complaint, (2) did what they had to do to check it out, (3) concluded it was b.s. and (4) were nice enough about the whole thing. They also wished me luck on the novice exam.
The gentlemen were nice enough. I was about 18 or 19 and studying for my novice license at the time, so I was probably a little better versed than the good buddies of the day who bought their Kraco CB right after watching Convoy. I proudly showed them my rig, which I had quite neatly and professionally installed: tie downs, spacers, silicone seals, water-tight coax-to-antenna connector, plastic tubing covering my exposed RG-8, etc. I had even replaced all of the hardware on my .64 with stainless steel. Damn, my set up looked good! I think they were shocked that a teenager had put so much thought into setting up a CB.
My TRC 448, which they did ask to see, had never been opened. That was pretty obvious to anyone looking. I also volunteered that I had a TRC 451 in the sailboat out back, and explained that the whole point of our set up was to be able to communicate from house to boat by two way radio.
They got it. The gentlemen asked few questions, asked to see our station license (I always used our call sign), accepted my explanations and did not even bother to test my radios. They obviously had been listening to my transmissions because they threw in some nice compliments about the sound quality of our station and my radio etiquette.
To their credit, I think: (1) they got a complaint, (2) did what they had to do to check it out, (3) concluded it was b.s. and (4) were nice enough about the whole thing. They also wished me luck on the novice exam.
I knew a CB "bootlegger" back in 1970 called Red Dog. I bought an NC-300 from him for when I passed my novice license. He had a visit by an FCC engineer who inspected his station. He was using the NC-300 and a Heathkit DX-100 on CB but he did have a regular CB radio on the desk as well. He had made a habit of disconnecting the coax from the DX-100 and connecting it to the CB radio. He also would pull the finals from the DX -100 after cool down. This may be what saved him but the engineer told he he could be cited for having his antenna too high. It was a Hygain CLR2 on a chimney mount but the mast was a few feet too long but nothing really unreasonable.
He decided to get out of CB radio at that point.
I have two friends that call telephone calls from the FCC about that same time. The engineer suggested that they get their ham licenses which we all did shortly after that. One of them was running Drake twins and a home brew amp with 4 572B tubes he bought from someone and a 5 element Hygain Long John beam on CB.
He decided to get out of CB radio at that point.
I have two friends that call telephone calls from the FCC about that same time. The engineer suggested that they get their ham licenses which we all did shortly after that. One of them was running Drake twins and a home brew amp with 4 572B tubes he bought from someone and a 5 element Hygain Long John beam on CB.
Many moons ago I had a nice visit from the FCC I was lucky in the fact that I had warning that they were in town so my linear and expanded radio wasnt in the house when they showed up and from what the FCC told me that they had the right to inspect the station and only the station that and the room in which the station was located in and that the rest of the house was off limits to them but this was in 1980 and the FCC had no arrest powers and had to get a warrant to search the rest of the house the agent was nice to me and my family but if they had got a warrant and searched the garage I would have been in deep Doo Doo............Now days with the FCC being under the umbrella of Homeland Security those days are gone they do have arrest powers........... As far as antenna height they wont say a word about being a foot or so higher that the 60 foot limit and they wont say too much if your station does a little more that 12 watts PEP
Have to agree with Kaos. They are around with plenty of Techs coming out of the military that have dealt with some tuff stuff. They come around fire camp and make sure we are not using "offshore freqs maritine" which many of my Fire compadres used as chat channels. There is no channel other than the one given we can speak on. Before this the compadres used to use FRS. They shut that down. After narrow band we do not mess around on a fire incident. The last information that I have is we are losing the fire tactical frequencies(no surprise they keeps selling freq's)that we have currently. I do understand frequency management. There were several years while I was a dispatcher on one forest and a forest way to north filed against us. They were unfamiliar with skip and they thought our system was turned up. It was not(150.000 to 180.000) they got some skip from us(south to north). They were trying to keep their folks safe. Good call. All went big and was resolved as mother nature changed her ways.
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...runna pile-up on 6m SSB