What’s stopping another person/company from transmitting on the same radio frequency as an established radio channel?
In: Technology
Other than the ~~felony charges~~ $10,000 fine and up to a year in prison? Nothing.
It would take a considerable amount of power to be able to compete for that frequency to any noticeable amount, but if someone did, they’d be found pretty quickly. It’s incredibly easy to find the location of an unlicensed broadcast and the feds *will* come knocking.
As others have noted, nothing *stops* you.
I tech for a small FM station. We transmit using a lot of power from a big antenna on the top of a big hill. This gives us coverage because, well, physics and geography. If you got a little transmitter of say 100W and used an antenna on your house, you’ll win over us for a radius around your house, a few blocks. But not over the majority of our coverage area.
And if noticed, and the subject of complaints, the authorities will come and track the transmitter down. And take it out of service by confiscation.
Where are you and what channel is it? On a physical level, the only real barrier is buying the right equipment.
If you’re say, in the US, then transmitting on a channel where you’re not supposed to likely gets you a visit from the FCC.
Thing is, if you’re trying to compete with broadcast FM you’re going to have a really hard time overpowering their signals most of the time.
If you’re just competing with some other amateur, then expect to get yelled at.
People or companies pay license fees to the radio spectrum management department of your local government.
The radio spectrum management department then has staff that will track down sources of interference, fine and prosecute offenders.
In the USA this is the FCC.
In the UK it is Ofcom.
New Zealand it is RSM.
Australia it is ACMA.
Canada ISED
Most national governments in the developed world have a radio licensing agency that decides who has the right to broadcast on each frequency. There’s a ton of of [international conferences](https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/conferences/wrc/Pages/default.aspx) and national lawmaking to sort this out. Some parts of the radio spectrum are reserved for law enforcement, military, or scientific use, others are auctioned off for commercial use, and some are left open for anyone to use without a license. [Here’s](https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf) a frequency allocation chart for the US.
In most countries the radio licensing agency has equipment and people who can track and identify “pirate” radio transmissions that aren’t licensed to use their frequency. In the US, this is the [FCC](https://www.fcc.gov/), in the UK it’s [Ofcom](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/), etc. This agency imposes severe fines and sometimes jail time for anyone who breaks the rules. In the US, these fines can be up to [$120,000](https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/583) per day!
This type of enforcement has been in the news recently in the US: the FCC has started to go after a bunch of pirate radio stations in the [Boston](https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2024/09/18/fcc-radio-station-haitian-creole) and [New York](https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-warnings-13new-york-landowners-illegal-pirate-radio-broadcasts) area.
It’s important for national governments to manage their radio spectrum and go after unlicensed users, because radio frequency is a classic example of a [“tragedy of the commons” problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons): if everybody uses it however they like with no organized plan, everyone’s broadcasts interfere with everyone else’s, and radio becomes useless for everyone.
Absolutely nothing, other than the fact that it’s highly illegal.
It is a bit difficult though, you would need a transmitter that’s *at least* as powerful as theirs to actually interfere with it.
Nothing. As a kid I got some walkie talkies from a family member. Me and my neighbour kid were both outside with them for less than half an hour before police showed up as we were on their frequency. Silly Dutch laws at the time: it was legal to sell and buy those things but illegal to use them.
Before Bluetooth and headphones jacks became common they had ipod or phone adapters for cars that would broadcast in the FM frequency range so you’d just tune into your own broadcast frequency on the car radio.
They are legal since they are very low power.
The authorities will stop you sooner or later.
Back in the late 80s, a buddy was an radio ham and got several thousand watts of transmitting power. It was so powerful that he interfered with TVs in the neighbourhood, people heard him through their TVs.
He was lucky though as he hid all the equipment rather quickly. Soon after, you could see vans with a lot of antennas on the roof in the whole neighbourhood. They tried to track the source of interference down. Which would mean charges and a hefty fine.
For most people the combination „required skillset to do this“ and „be smart enough to NOT do it if you could“ are enough.
The rest gets educated by the fines attached to doing so.
Story:
Worked for a company that designed and commissioned systems on ships. We had a component that was designed to transmit _occasionally some_ messages over UHF (or was it VHF?). That’s a spectrum that you are legally allowed to use, but not to block permanently. The component was misconfigured and did transmit constantly instead of „occasionally“.
The channel being blocked impeded on vessel operations (maneuver coordination e.g. dropping anchor and throwing lines) of ferries in a berth in the vicinity.
The error must have happened late one evening – by late morning next day there was a white van with antennas coming to our berth. I believe the fine was in the mid- 10.000€ range.
Even though it was clearly an unintentional mistake.
Bottom line: don’t do stupid things. Or just FAFO.
Just to clarify: the consequences will SIGNIFICANTLY depend on what frequencies you mess around on:
Is it specifically licensed to someone (e.g. cell phone operator) or in use for something of general relevance (e.g. air traffic control / police etc) OR is it free to be used by public under certain conditions (see story) OR is it free without conditions
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