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Comment by revelation | Hacker News Reader

Also illegal. Call FCC.

I filed a complaint with the FCC regarding a suspected jamming device. I'm pretty sure they didn't even read it. They forwarded the complaint to my wireless carrier, who sent a reply saying that the complaint had nothing to do with them and that my original complaint had reported a jammer. The FCC closed the complaint and considers it satisfied.

This is the gold standard example of the FCC's behavior towards cellular spectrum. They have a very different mission when it comes to HAM spectrum.

Cellular spectrum: Grandstand and extract cash from the carriers.

Ham spectrum: Antenna-laden vans canvasing neighborhoods for radio pirates.

It is despicable.

> Antenna-laden vans canvasing neighborhoods for radio pirates.

Got any photos, or links to accounts of these? I did a quick google image search because you think someone would have caught one in the wild by now, but no.

Here is a video of the inside of one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIGAOLJh-XE

Wow. Well, thanks for that! That's pretty bizarre!

I don't! I only have stories from radio pirates.

In this case, the complaint is unauthorized radio operation.

Cool, this is the agency I want to have on the job of regulating the Internet so it is "neutral".

There's ways [1] to set up a rogue BTS / IMSI catcher that is seemingly legal [2] - by using US amateur radio bands (that are used as GSM bands in other parts of the world), not using encryption and spitting out your callsign once in a while.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKihq1fClQg

[2] - You should not take legal advice from strangers on the Internet.

Sometimes there are reserved parts of the spectrum for test networks you can get assigned for a limited time, the CCC had a GSM (and some 3G I think) network for many years.

Using the 33cm band is a nice trick.

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