Gerhard Fiedler connectionbrazil.com> writes: > Charles Craft wrote: > > > http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/26/signal.marines.ap/index.html > > > > "Marine signal knocks out garage door openers" > > > > I think this may have been discussed on the list before but this is the > > first article where I saw a DOD quote that basically says "you're > > screwed". > > Not quite; to me what they say sounds more like "you bought a defective > product", or, maybe more correctly, "you were too cheap to buy a proper RC > product, and the product you bought was designed to not work in some > perfectly normal situations" :) After reading the original article one has to conclude a few things: That the frequency was indeed earmarked for use by the forces in case of need. Also that it took 6 years to notice the need, from 9/11 until now when it started being used. That rc immunity to noise is less than needed in general. I remember when the gardeners were trimming the hedges on my street a few summers ago several barriers would raise whenever the gardener (whom I could not see) revved up his hedge trimmer. I cannot help but notice the correlation between the length of the average spark plug wire on a hedge trimmer and a quarter wave dipole for 450 MHz. That the same frequencies now used by the military also haapen to be used by FRS radios. Thus their use may have rendered FRS radios useless in that area. In case of emergency this could be bad. That the same band (again) is also used by hams (432 MHz) and a very strong local transmitter near enough (f.ex. on 433 MHz) will probably make that band useless. But then local councils in that country appropriate entire houses from time to time, 'in the interest of urban development' (i.e. to sell the land to the highest bidder so he can build a shopping mall there). And radio spectrum is sold off to the highest bidder, who then 'develops' it and passes the cost on to the customers, while paying taxes in perpetuity to the state on its revenue from said customers. Other countries do that too, by the way. Peter P. -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist