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Comment by zik | Hacker News Reader

This would be considered "harmful interference" in my country and our communications authority would take a dim view of it. Amazingly they have way more power than the police in these matters - if they detect harmful interference they can enter property without a warrant, confiscate the offending equipment and impose hefty fines.

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Actually it's probably not "harmful interference".

The German DCF77 signals may not be considered a protected broadcast in Denmark. It is possible that the DCF77 signals are just too weak.

But yes, the Radio Licensing Authorities have incredible powers in most countries, but these only apply in cases of extreme danger, eg someone is jamming an aircraft channel in an emergency. In normal situations, they must apply for a search warrant as would other civilian authorities.

DCF77 is indeed not a protected broadcast in denmark, despite the fact that an awfull lot of public infrastructure uses it for timekeeping.

Which country, if you don't mind me asking?

(the idea of the FCC breaking someone's door down and taking their equipment is pretty funny to me, although I can't say for sure it's never happened)

I don't know about the breaking down the door part, but the FCC does conduct spectrum surveillance and they do look for illegal stations and troublesome operations.

It's happened, actually. Look at the history of pirate radio - there were armed raids done in cooperation and under the auspices of the FCC.

That was mostly because the were (perceived to be) an economic threat to some very big industries, it had very little to do with electro-magnetic radiation.

The FCC is pretty good about cracking down on illegal transmitters--I had a friend in high school who thought it would be a funny idea to set up an FM transmitter with one or more orders of magnitude Tx power than is allowed, and it only took the FCC a couple of days to come and seize his equipment, with a very stern warning. I would imagine if we had been older, he'd have been looking at a multi-thousand dollar fine, for good reason. The FCC really is not to be taken lightly.

The man in the Ministry of Housinge cat detector van can pinpoint a purr at 400 yards, but he didn't have the right form. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5MnyRZLd8A

The FCC does possess, and has exercised in the past, these powers.

The legal argument is that by using the public spectrum to transmit, you have agreed to FCC enforcement of such. Thus, you have tacitly agreed that the FCC in fact does not need a warrant to investigate, or seize your equipment, if they determine that that is an appropriate action.

I think this is beyond a flimsy argument, but it is the argument. It needs more looking over in courts, frankly. Seems like it could be easily abused.

It is not obvious to me that emission limits are being exceeded here, and I don't have a calibrated antenna which would allow me to decide one way or another.

But even if emission limits are not exceeded VLF-based radio-clocks near the loop will still have much more noise to contend with.

Presumably he doesn't want someone to come along and take away his lawnmower.

How long do these mowers run for? Do they run continuously or for one hour every month?

They are very low (motor) power, so they need to run often, in order for the grass not to grow too tall.

Here in Denmark they usually run at least three times a week, but very often every day of the week.

How many hours they run each time depends mostly on the ratio of the lawn-size to the mower-width.

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