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Police mistake a ham radio for a bomb
- Thread starter Moleculo
- Start date
Honest mistake, just because we know what the item was doesn't mean everyone else is going to know.
I work with 60 other firemen in our dept, and only two of us are licensed ham's, the other guy just got licensed. We have a Capt in charge of our radio equipment that wouldn't have a clue what a balun was if he tripped over it, and would also probably think it a bomb.....
It's sometimes hard to understand, but in this post Oklahoma City ~ 9/11 world, emergency responders are required to take certain steps and precautions involving everything they do. I wasn't there and will not condemn the actions taken, but if I were the incident commander of that situation, I would have explored the possibility of taking a suspicious device I couldn't immediately identify, outside of the city limits to blow it up, and not have the trip wire squad do it in a residential neighborhood.......
I work with 60 other firemen in our dept, and only two of us are licensed ham's, the other guy just got licensed. We have a Capt in charge of our radio equipment that wouldn't have a clue what a balun was if he tripped over it, and would also probably think it a bomb.....
It's sometimes hard to understand, but in this post Oklahoma City ~ 9/11 world, emergency responders are required to take certain steps and precautions involving everything they do. I wasn't there and will not condemn the actions taken, but if I were the incident commander of that situation, I would have explored the possibility of taking a suspicious device I couldn't immediately identify, outside of the city limits to blow it up, and not have the trip wire squad do it in a residential neighborhood.......
see...if he wasnt being a duck with dipole and had a beam on the roof he wouldnt have had this problem...
My Hy-Gain 20 meter 4 element beam had a balun
http://www.hy-gain.com/Product.php?productid=LJ-204BA
http://www.hy-gain.com/Product.php?productid=BN-4000B
Quack, Quack, Quack......:glare:
All I have is low hung dipoles, and in the two weeks or so that I've been on the HF bands I've got 4 confirmed DX contacts, and 2 log book pages worth from Oregon to Florida and everywhere in between.....
:headbang
Wow! i have one of those POS baluns i should call the local media. And sit back and pour a drink and wait for the local keystone cops to come and detonate it .:laugh::laugh::laugh:
:headbang
Wow! i have one of those POS baluns i should call the local media. And sit back and pour a drink and wait for the local keystone cops to come and detonate it .:laugh::laugh::laugh:
This article got me to thinking.....(and that's not always a good thing)....so I made myself a couple of those pipe bombs......I mean baluns.......
Actually they're just 1:1 dipole hangers, but they look dangerous to the unsuspecting.......
Actually they're just 1:1 dipole hangers, but they look dangerous to the unsuspecting.......
When I traveled a lot I would operate 20M CW with a dipole in the hotel room. Lot a fun! A year after 9-11 I was on that rig in White Plains, NY in a hotel room when I set off the fire alarm with the RF I was generating. Within seconds the room phone rang, it was the front desk asking if everything was ok. About a minute later maintenance crews arrived and when they saw the radio, keyer, headphones and wire taped to the ceiling the police where called! It took some explaining but they finally believed it was just a hobby. I sold the rig shortly after that.