Press Cuttings Page
Strange but TRUE!

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Anger Crackles Across Amateur Wavebands

New Scientist March 30th 1978

An internecine battle between Britain’s radio amateurs-which has already erupted into violence-is disturbing the normal placidity of the hobby.
The fight centres around repeater-stations, which have been built around Britain for the benefit of radio enthusiasts who use the 144 MHz (2 Metre) band. By re-broadcasting signals from a high point, repeaters extend the range of this band from 50km to as much as 150km.
But some of the hobby’s "old guard" feel that widespread availability of Japanese made VHF transmitter-receivers, plus the increasing use of repeaters, is making the hobby too easy. So they are now jamming the repeaters. The worst hit is GB3LO at Crystal Palace, south London, where a hard core of a few people continuously broadcast music, tapes, funny voices, obscenities, and electric feedback noises to tie up the repeater.
And they have not stopped at jamming. Forged letters have been sent in the names of groups organising repeater stations. At amateur conventions, the anti-repeater lobby wears tee-shirts emblazoned with "Wreck your local repeater". And two people have been convicted of doing just that-burning down repeater GB3SN at Alton, Hampshire, last year (Radio Communications, Feb 1978, p147).
The names and callsigns of the principal jammers are well known in amateur circles and have been reported to the Home Office and the Radio Society of Great Britain {Limited} (RSGB). Yet the normally speedy legal measures-which include RSGB’s own police force, called Intruderwatch and designed to keep non-licensed amateurs and commercial stations off the air-have not so far been applied. The Home Office has, however, refused to licence further repeaters, quoting jamming as the main reason.
Radio amateurs who support the use of repeaters are highly critical of the RSGB. One of the jammers-known as "Squeaky" and specialising in funny voices-is widely alleged on the air to be holding office in the RSGB. More generally, the RSGB is seen as holding back the hobby and of being subservient to existing government regulations about communications.
In Britain, amateurs, who have to pass an examination to get a licence, are prohibited from discussing politics or religion, or passing any information for third parties. Infringement results in loss of licence.
The result of these restrictions is that most conversation on British amateur bands is about technical topics, inane subjects like gardening and wives, or the list of radio contacts that have been made recently. In the US, these restrictions do not apply. Amateurs there arrange teach-ins on radio, hold discussion networks, and have set up the kind of emergency network which has also become common on US citizens band.

Check it out, click above for the original article!

THE OBSERVER
Trouble in the air for the radio hams
by NIGEL HAWKES, our Science Correspondent

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G2DQU Get your trousers off!

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Taken from RSGB Ltd. News Sunday 11.7.99

* The proposed use of frequencies at HF to distribute high-speed data via the electricity mains was raised recently during Question Time in the House of Lords.
Lord Brian Rix, G2DQU, asked Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who was replying on behalf of the Government, questions relating to the threat of Power Line Telecommunications to amateur frequencies.

Lord Rix asked what plans there were to ensure that PLT through the use of radio frequencies did not "cause interference to legitimate users of the short wave spectrum, affect the Ministry of Defence, International broadcasting authorities, radio amateur, and civil and military aviation users."

Lord Sainsbury replied that PLT is an "innovative use of mains electrical wiring to bring information age services to consumers. The exploitation of this technology could make a significant contribution to building the knowledge driven economy". However, he accepted that "it could give rise to interference to radio services". He added that the Radiocommunications Agency "is urgently studying" the propensity of PLT technology to cause radio interference. He said that "decisions will be taken in the light of that work on what steps are necessary in order to prevent undue interference. These could include using powers available under Section 10 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949."

Thanks for the following cutting that was emailed to us, it's from the British
Sunday Times

Booby-trap Terrorists of the Airwaves Laugh at Law

by Ian Burrell
Home Affairs Reporter

Sorry about the poor quality, this is how it was received via email, the text is reproduced below, so you can read it!

There could hardly be a more potent sign of society's descent into madness. Two of post-war Britain's most inoffensive icons-the Laughing Policeman and the radio ham-have been transformed into symbols of a bizarre but dangerous brand of terrorism.

When the recorded peals of the Laughing Policeman are heard on the amateur airwaves by officials from the Radiocommunications Agency (RCA), which is responsible for stopping unlawful broadcasts they know that they face physical risk.

Four police forces are investigating attacks on the homes of RCA officials as well as incidents of booby-trapped explosive devices planted in trees and bushes. They are gathering evidence against members of a secretive group that calls itself the Laughing Policeman Wireless Society, which appears to be dedicated to disrupting the harmless hobby of Britain's 60,000 radio hams who communicate with each other over the airwaves.
The organisation states in its literature that it is determined to close down all of the country’s 50 hill-top radio transmitters that law-abiding
hams use to relay their long-distance messages. The Birmingham transmitter has already been turned off because obscene and unlawful broadcasts were relayed from it at regular intervals.

The authorities are baffled as to what the society's motives are. The society, whose members identify themselves only by codenames, takes its name from the 1950s song The Adventures of the Laughing Policeman, by Charles Penrose. Members broadcast the song over the airwaves when boasting about a successful operation.
The RCA, which is responsible for stopping unlawful broadcasts, has obtained copies of the Penrose Gazette, the society's newsletter, in which death threats have been made against its inspectors. Cartoons of named investigators have been depicted with their heads on spikes.
In one issue a picture of a hangman's noose carried the message: ''This space reserved for the radio investigation service."

Government inspectors believe the group was behind the planting of an explosive device near a radio transmitter at Brill, Buckinghamshire, in September. The equipment was sending out a jamming signal and had been buried on a small island in a lake. It was fitted with a flare which was designed to go off in the face of anyone who disturbed it. The booby trap had a solar panel to recharge its batteries. An army bomb squad was called in to make the device safe.

The RCA, part of the Department of Trade and Industry said that in recent weeks the Laughing Policeman song had been broadcast to announce that two similar devices were to be planted at transmitters in the New Year. At the same time there was a succession of attacks on the homes of its investigators. Paint-stripper was poured over their homes and cars in night-time raids. Police are investigating more than a dozen attacks, seven on RCA officials and the remainder on radio hams who have complained about the organisation's activities.

Assistant chief constable John Burbeck, of West Mercia police, who is co-ordinating the inquiry, said: "We are taking this very seriously. We are concerned there may be a campaign against the enforcement officers of a government agency." The victim of one recent attack, a senior RCA official in the Midlands, said last week that his family was terrified by the ordeal. "My telephone number is ex-directory but they must have found out where I live by following me home from work," he said. The attackers struck one evening last month, shortly after 11pm, pouring gallons of paint stripper over the inspector's car, his wife's vehicle and his son's motorcycles. Bricks were thrown through his windows. The repair bill will total more than £9,000.

Investigators are examining links between the society and rogue hams who have tried to confuse pilots by broadcasting false messages in the jargon of air traffic controllers. Incidents have been reported at Manchester, Newcastle and Heathrow airports. Others have sent bogus maritime distress signals to coastguards in the northeast of England in an attempt to launch futile rescue missions.

West Mercia detectives are working with colleagues from the West Midlands, Thames Valley and Hertfordshire forces to establish whether such acts of "airwave terrorism" are linked.

 Mohan Dhamrait, an RCA investigator, described the attackers as "lunatics''. He said: "Their intelligence network is uncanny and up to now they have kept one step ahead of us."

The above is an example of the press getting hold of a few details and expanding them into a printable story. The Aylesbury Repeater "Bomb" was nothing to do with the LPWS, as far as we know it was a private enterprise by persons unknown, to copy the effect of some of our devices.
We understand that the first device was located and stolen by local radio amateurs, so the "so called" bomb was added to shake up future potential thieves. It is rumoured to have been only a marine distress flare or a firework.

The copy of The Penrose Gazette they refer to seems to have been downloaded from our old website, and was a very early one produced by an offset printer at a village hall, by a "sympathiser".

To blame us for personal attacks on DTI/RA employees is quite ridiculous, surely the UBR Pirates who have had their expensive equipment and record collections confiscated are the more likely culprits, if that part of the report is at all true.
In the same way, previously no one in the LPWS was aware anyone in the country had been messing about with Air Traffic Control, likewise, marine distress signals would, presumably, have to be in the vicinity of the sea, the LPWS is based just about as far from any sea as you can be in the UK.

The Driller Killer Incident

This is just the sort of problem that the RIS were supposed to sort out on our behalf, where were they in this case?
It seems the system has totally collapsed and this Christopher Everix of 1 Grange Road Bearley Stratford CV37 0SE, [Tel. 01789 731779]  could not have complied with the terms of his license; Specifically BR68 4 (1) & (2) & (3) & (4). I wonder what measures they are took with regard to this obvious breach of the terms & conditions. Here is a copy of the story from the newspaper:-

Man drilled through wall in TV fuzz row

A Midland man became so frustrated at interference with his TV picture caused by a neighbour's amateur radio that he poured methylated spirits through a hole he had drilled in the adjoining wall, a court heard. Graham Stanley (41), of Grange Road, Bearley, near Stratford, pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to damaging a wall and carpet belonging to his neighbour Christopher Everix.

Stanley has been put on probation for 18 months with a condition that he receives psychiatric treatment. He had denied two more serious charges of attempted arson, the first alleging he intended to endanger Mr Everix's life and the second that he was reckless whether his neighbour's life was endangered.

Interfering

And on the day he was due to stand trial Mr Makhan Shoker, prosecuting, said he would offer no evidence on those charges and Stanley was formally found not guilty. Mr Shoker told the court there had been a problem between the two men because amateur radio enthusiast Mr Everix's aerial was interfering with the picture on Stanley's television.

Over the course of a number of weeks earlier this year Stanley drilled a hole through the wall between his bedroom and Mr Everix’s bedroom and in April, using a funnel and a length of pipe, he poured meths through the hole on to the carpet.

But Mr Everix called the police after he noticed the smell and found the hole in the wall.