FCC Warns Against Foolishness on Guard

Fearless Tower said:
This FCC announcement reminds me of the 'Guard Police' guy that ATCmemes pokes fun at.

While the Guard Nazis are indeed annoying, this just makes the FCC look like fools.

This is about as enforceable as the Coast Guard trying to stop the Filipino Monkeys on CH 16....
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Actually, FCC when they WANT to (and rarely do they want to...) has a pretty good record of finding and silencing problem transmitters.

My favorite was the dipweed who stood outside... in his front yard... with a stolen Denver PD radio (they didn't trigger the remote kill on it, and yes, the new stuff has that, but they didn't need to, because it was a trunked system, so they just moved him off to his own talkgroup... and had a dispatcher pretend to be annoyed by him to keep him talking) so the FCC van and a pile of cop cars could roll up in unison.

Some people are too stupid to figure out that if you're transmitting ... you're findable... and the transmitter is identifiable...

It's all about resources... FCC doesn't care about stuff that isn't endangering anyone, for the most part... but once they do care... the technical work is usually "over with" in a couple of days. They can afford some pretty damn nice tools and toys.
 
Clark1961 said:
Then after the radio stack was replaced I'd frequently make calls on the old freq because I didn't flip-flop. Hey, the old radios didn't flip-flop...
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That's what they say about old habits...
 
denverpilot said:
Actually, FCC when they WANT to (and rarely do they want to...) has a pretty good record of finding and silencing problem transmitters.
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Depends on what the offender is doing. When some jack wagon is making multiple transmissions amounting to a false distress call, that's one thing.

But that's not the issue with IAD/Guard. It's the multiple clowns who make single quick annoying transmissions.

FCC doesn't have the resources to catch those guys.

It reminds me of when the Coat Guard broadcasts on CH 16 for the offense to 'identify himself'

Offender: "I may be stupid, but I'm not THAT stupid"
 
Fearless Tower said:
Depends on what the offender is doing. When some jack wagon is making multiple transmissions amounting to a false distress call, that's one thing.

But that's not the issue with IAD/Guard. It's the multiple clowns who make single quick annoying transmissions.

FCC doesn't have the resources to catch those guys.

It reminds me of when the Coat Guard broadcasts on CH 16 for the offense to 'identify himself'

Offender: "I may be stupid, but I'm not THAT stupid"
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Rumor on the street is that the "resources" from FCC magically appeared for false distress calls in the Boston area. The letter is likely just a side-effect of that.
 
Someone tell military controllers. If I had a dollar for every time that Giant Killer made a long radio test on guard at the worst possible moment, or some random USN ship started querying aircraft who were squawking military codes in scheduled military special use airspace (that they just happened to be transiting beneath).......I'd have a used Miata. Last sort of event derailed a training flight I was instructing last week for nearly 10 mins, while they continually hailed us comm jamming any ability to conduct our event, indicating that they were tracking our mode 2 and mode 4 IFF returns, and we even identified ourselves using our military callsign......after about the first dozen guard calls, told them to contact GK for further information. Calls continued. I get it......they obviously have a wartime/overseas matrix to follow, but calling yourself "coalition warship" 30 miles off the coast of VA beach to a bunch of "coalition aircraft" (same team dudes), and playing the "query Iranian traffic" game is just silly. /rant
 
denverpilot said:
Rumor on the street is that the "resources" from FCC magically appeared for false distress calls in the Boston area. The letter is likely just a side-effect of that.
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I could tell some stories - but won't.
 
wsuffa said:
I could tell some stories - but won't.
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LOL. Me too. This rumor isn't directly confirmed for me by someone I know, but the someone I know has some fun stories of catching some RF misbehavior at the UN... seems like foreign diplomats like to show up with whatever radios they use at home with no regard whatsoever for our spectrum management process. Go figure.

And that's the tame stuff. Sometimes we WANT them to abuse our spectrum. At least while certain agencies are listening anyway. :)

The stuff we do know and the stuff we don't know, well... we probably really don't want to know all the stuff we don't know. But those who need to know, sometimes know. ;) ;) ;)
 
denverpilot said:
LOL. Me too. This rumor isn't directly confirmed for me by someone I know, but the someone I know has some fun stories of catching some RF misbehavior at the UN... seems like foreign diplomats like to show up with whatever radios they use at home with no regard whatsoever for our spectrum management process. Go figure.

And that's the tame stuff. Sometimes we WANT them to abuse our spectrum. At least while certain agencies are listening anyway. :)

The stuff we do know and the stuff we don't know, well... we probably really don't want to know all the stuff we don't know. But those who need to know, sometimes know. ;) ;) ;)
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NYC used to have an issue with grey-market importers bringing in and selling "long-range" cordless phones. Operated on various VHF frequencies that were allocated to folks that didn't take too kindly to listening to a conversation in foreign language du jour. some of those suckers put out like 50 watts on the base station. Users typically said "they sold 'em so I bought 'em"... And some of them were diplomats. It is a different ballgame when diplomatic immunity gets invoked.
 
wsuffa said:
NYC used to have an issue with grey-market importers bringing in and selling "long-range" cordless phones. Operated on various VHF frequencies that were allocated to folks that didn't take too kindly to listening to a conversation in foreign language du jour. some of those suckers put out like 50 watts on the base station. Users typically said "they sold 'em so I bought 'em"... And some of them were diplomats. It is a different ballgame when diplomatic immunity gets invoked.
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LOL I remember those. I told my dad to buy one for his middle of nowhere cabin. He didn't but would have worked great, and nobody would have cared up there. :)

Another friend has a 1W LPFM transmitter also at a cabin in the middle of nowhere. His friends and kids joke that they switch to his station now as soon as they enter the mountain valley since it has better tunes than the lonely Public Broadcasting translator up there. Haha.

He may or may not have gotten a lesson on antenna gain from me. I'll never say. ;) Who needs RF power when you can just focus it like a MagLight? :)

Nobody GAF about spectrum in unpopulated areas is one of the pluses of living out West in the mountains, I guess. :) :) :)

I'm pretty sure as long as he doesn't start selling commercials that anyone will care about his transmitter for at least a decade or two, and he's retired -- so it'll go away when he croaks. Public station will just look greedy and anti-competitive for making people listen to their never ending money-a-thons if they trigger someone to go after him.
 
35 AoA said:
Someone tell military controllers. If I had a dollar for every time that Giant Killer made a long radio test on guard at the worst possible moment, or some random USN ship started querying aircraft who were squawking military codes in scheduled military special use airspace (that they just happened to be transiting beneath).......I'd have a used Miata. Last sort of event derailed a training flight I was instructing last week for nearly 10 mins, while they continually hailed us comm jamming any ability to conduct our event, indicating that they were tracking our mode 2 and mode 4 IFF returns, and we even identified ourselves using our military callsign......after about the first dozen guard calls, told them to contact GK for further information. Calls continued. I get it......they obviously have a wartime/overseas matrix to follow, but calling yourself "coalition warship" 30 miles off the coast of VA beach to a bunch of "coalition aircraft" (same team dudes), and playing the "query Iranian traffic" game is just silly. /rant
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Perhaps they were doing it to help prepare you for the fog of war. :D Sea Lord never failed to provide comic relief when I worked with them. Always yapping on guard or the landlines about nonsense.
 
Brad Z said:
Maybe it's not a problem in West Texas but it is really common on the east coast.
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Honest, I've actually called out "on guard" or something of that sort out in West Texas once or twice just to find out if anyone was going to hear us if we had an emergency landing... I'm certainly not advocating breaking the rules, but it's occasionally nice to know someone is actually monitoring the freq.
 
35 AoA said:
Someone tell military controllers. If I had a dollar for every time that Giant Killer made a long radio test on guard at the worst possible moment, or some random USN ship started querying aircraft who were squawking military codes in scheduled military special use airspace (that they just happened to be transiting beneath).......I'd have a used Miata. Last sort of event derailed a training flight I was instructing last week for nearly 10 mins, while they continually hailed us comm jamming any ability to conduct our event, indicating that they were tracking our mode 2 and mode 4 IFF returns, and we even identified ourselves using our military callsign......after about the first dozen guard calls, told them to contact GK for further information. Calls continued. I get it......they obviously have a wartime/overseas matrix to follow, but calling yourself "coalition warship" 30 miles off the coast of VA beach to a bunch of "coalition aircraft" (same team dudes), and playing the "query Iranian traffic" game is just silly. /rant
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I don't know who's worse....Giant Killer or Beaver
 
denverpilot said:
Another friend has a 1W LPFM transmitter also at a cabin in the middle of nowhere. His friends and kids joke that they switch to his station now as soon as they enter the mountain valley since it has better tunes than the lonely Public Broadcasting translator up there. Haha.

I'm pretty sure as long as he doesn't start selling commercials that anyone will care about his transmitter for at least a decade or two, and he's retired -- so it'll go away when he croaks. Public station will just look greedy and anti-competitive for making people listen to their never ending money-a-thons if they trigger someone to go after him.
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Until the thing starts throwing spurs on aviation frequencies.... Guard, perhaps? :D

I've seen nimrods operate those kinds of transmitters on -say 108.1 near an airport ILS....
 
35 AoA said:
Someone tell military controllers. If I had a dollar for every time that Giant Killer made a long radio test on guard at the worst possible moment, or some random USN ship started querying aircraft who were squawking military codes in scheduled military special use airspace (that they just happened to be transiting beneath).......I'd have a used Miata. Last sort of event derailed a training flight I was instructing last week for nearly 10 mins, while they continually hailed us comm jamming any ability to conduct our event, indicating that they were tracking our mode 2 and mode 4 IFF returns, and we even identified ourselves using our military callsign......after about the first dozen guard calls, told them to contact GK for further information. Calls continued. I get it......they obviously have a wartime/overseas matrix to follow, but calling yourself "coalition warship" 30 miles off the coast of VA beach to a bunch of "coalition aircraft" (same team dudes), and playing the "query Iranian traffic" game is just silly. /rant
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What was worse was the ships that used to leave IFF on when they came into Little Creek, just north of ORF. That usually resulted in a call from FAA or FCC.
 
wsuffa said:
What was worse was the ships that used to leave IFF on when they came into Little Creek, just north of ORF. That usually resulted in a call from FAA or FCC.
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I can imagine. The Little Creek piers are literally only a few hundred yards short of the approach end of 23.

Dumbasses, since strangling IFF (as is securing air search radars) is on every ship's entering port checklist.
 
denverpilot said:
......Another friend has a 1W LPFM transmitter also at a cabin in the middle of nowhere. His friends and kids joke that they switch to his station now as soon as they enter the mountain valley since it has better tunes than the lonely Public Broadcasting translator up there. Haha...... .
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When I was in Bethel, Alaska there was a guy that transmitted his own music. Seems he didn't like the local radio station programing. I don't blame him, I could not stand listening to 3 hours of people calling in to wish a family member happy birthday. He would load up something like 18 hours of music, no commercials.
 
bnt83 said:
Been a lot of chatter on CTAFs around here lately...
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Yep there sure is, and it seems to get worse in the summer (good flying) weather.

Sometimes I feel like getting on and telling people to shut the hell up except for "valid" communications. But that would mean I am simply adding to the chatter…
 
RalphInCA said:
Yep there sure is, and it seems to get worse in the summer (good flying) weather.

Sometimes I feel like getting on and telling people to shut the hell up except for "valid" communications. But that would mean I am simply adding to the chatter…
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"Podunk traffic, Bugsmasher 35 alpha is five miles west, will enter left downwind runway five, looking for the three chatterboxes who keep using this frequency to talk about baseball, Podunk."
 
RalphInCA said:
Yep there sure is, and it seems to get worse in the summer (good flying) weather.

Sometimes I feel like getting on and telling people to shut the hell up except for "valid" communications. But that would mean I am simply adding to the chatter…
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When they're really bad, going on for minutes at a time, I just insert myself into their conversation. "Hey, are you guys talking about Tom, the guy whose sister will go out with anyone, if you know what I mean? Yeah, he's a great guy, but he's got that one really bad habit, you know." Yes, it's fighting fire with fire, but so far that's worked every time. But that's an extreme case. I don't get bothered by short comments or greetings.
 
It's like the FAA is trying to stay relevant, kinda like when nothing happens and trump posts a new tweet, like remember me guys, I'm still important lol

I think the reason they put anti authority in the hazardous attitudes, was because they realized that after enough time most pilots would see the FAA for the quasi joke that have made themselves into.

This is just another reminder that perhaps we should make some cuts at the FAA, they obviously have far to many people with far to much time on their hands.
 
wsuffa said:
Until the thing starts throwing spurs on aviation frequencies.... Guard, perhaps? :D

I've seen nimrods operate those kinds of transmitters on -say 108.1 near an airport ILS....
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LOl... up where he's at, even spurs on GUARD would go unnoticed. Unless the satellites hadn't been decommissioned.
 
Just to throw fuel on the fire, we had an elt go off at 6Y9 overnight, and no one noticed or called anyone at the field. So much for people monitoring 121.5 in the ass end of nowhere...
 
James331 said:
It's like the FAA is trying to stay relevant, kinda like when nothing happens and trump posts a new tweet, like remember me guys, I'm still important lol

I think the reason they put anti authority in the hazardous attitudes, was because they realized that after enough time most pilots would see the FAA for the quasi joke that have made themselves into.

This is just another reminder that perhaps we should make some cuts at the FAA, they obviously have far to many people with far to much time on their hands.
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Except that this has nothing to do with the FAA it's the FCC.
 
RalphInCA said:
Yep there sure is, and it seems to get worse in the summer (good flying) weather.

Sometimes I feel like getting on and telling people to shut the hell up except for "valid" communications. But that would mean I am simply adding to the chatter…
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My CFI would just hit the PTT for a few seconds mid-sentence when they started blabbing on the CTAF.
 
vontresc said:
Just to throw fuel on the fire, we had an elt go off at 6Y9 overnight, and no one noticed or called anyone at the field. So much for people monitoring 121.5 in the ass end of nowhere...
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121.5 hasn't been monitored by anything that would hear 6Y9 for a looooooooong time. Not a surprise at all.
 
vontresc said:
Just to throw fuel on the fire, we had an elt go off at 6Y9 overnight, and no one noticed or called anyone at the field. So much for people monitoring 121.5 in the ass end of nowhere...
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The theory is more people would monitor 121.5 if others would stop talking superfluously and broadcasting music on it. I'm inclined to believe them.
 
James331 said:
...I think the reason they put anti authority in the hazardous attitudes, was because they realized that after enough time most pilots would see the FAA for the quasi joke that have made themselves into...
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I'm surprised more people don't find fault with that...The FAA (an authority) is telling you it is bad to be anti-authority...

It reminds me of an Emo Philips joke: "I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized — well, look what's telling me this!"
 
I should key up Guard when they're yapping, channel my friend's old Cajun mama, and yell what she used to yell at her kids when they couldn't stop the foolishiness: "HEY NOW, CUT OUT ALL THAT FOO YAA YAY!"

(I really want to figure out what original French phrase got mangled into "foo yaa yay")
 
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onezuludelta said:
I should key up Guard when they're yapping, channel my friend's old Cajun mama, and yell what she used to yell at her kids when they couldn't stop the foolishiness: "HEY NOW, CUT OUT ALL THAT FOO YA YAY!"

(I really want to figure out what original French phrase got mangled into "foo ya yay")
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I think most of the Cajun dialect was developed during moments of inebriation. French making slurring attempts at English = things like foo ya yay :)
 
jsstevens said:
Except that this has nothing to do with the FAA it's the FCC.
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"The FAA and FCC want aviators to remember..."

denverpilot said:
121.5 hasn't been monitored by anything that would hear 6Y9 for a looooooooong time. Not a surprise at all.
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Not sure about 6Y9, but most places in the US if you start chit chatting on 21.5 you'll have airline and 135 guys jump on you like a NFL pile drive.
 
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