[AMRadio] Ham Radio Question on the Clark Howard Show

[Donald Chester]

The Part 15 label pretty well says it.  Part 15 devices must not cause 
harmful interference to licensed services and must accept any harmful 
interference from licensed transmitters.  They operate entirely on a 
secondary, provisional basis.  They enjoy no legal protection whatever from 
duly licensed radio transmissions.

The provision that it is illegal to deliberately cause interference to 
another radio communication wouldn't apply  here, because if you interfere 
with a telephone, stereo or other device that is not intended to pick up 
radio signals but inadvertently acting as a radio receiver, you are not 
interfering with a RADIO communication.  A phone call or listening to a CD 
is not radio communication.

A similar topic came up some time ago  regarding deliberately jamming 
illegal CB'ers on 10 m.  Some argued that it would be illegal, since you are 
knowingly interfering with another radio communication.  Finally Riley 
Hollingsworth of the FCC stated that, as far as the FCC is concerned, since 
the CB transmissions are unlicensed and illegal,  legally they DON'T EXIST, 
and therefore enjoy no legal protection whatever, and a legally operating 
licensed station could never be cited for interfering with them.

My philosophy on telephones and other audio devices is to CO-OPERATE but 
OPERATE.

I once had a neighbour who complained that she could hear me in  her 
telephone.  She said my transmissions did not make it difficult for her to 
use the phone, but she was highly upset because she was convinced that since 
she could distinctly hear me in her phone, I could monitor her telephone 
conversations on my radio.  No amount of expraining the principles of radio 
and telephone communication could convince her otherwise.

Don K4KYV