What can be done to lore Knuckleheads off of repeater without shutting them off or involving the FCC?

[WQAI363]

As an Amateur Radio Licensee, I've heard a lot of terms in reference to individuals that lack commonsense on local Amateur Radio or GMRS repeaters. Last night, there sure was an individual making a complete Democratic Mascot out of himself. I can't tell whether the individual is a minor or an Adult that lacks commonsense. All I know that this individual has caused a lot of repeater trustees and owner to temporarily shut off their repeaters on several occasions, which is annoying to the membership of those organizations or groups that use those repeaters. 

Even though I'm not a member of LEARN, I key up and asked the individual to vacate the repeater. Of course, that individual is a child, because he tried to mock my speech pattern, which shows me, he must be either a minor or a complete Knucklehead.

Then again, I guess I'm guilty of cur chunking the repeater. However, I would never do the non-sense that this Banana has been doing. 

 

Edited December 16 by WQAI363
spelling correction

[AdmiralCochrane]

There is nothing you can do.

[OffRoaderX]

Nothing, short of triangulating his position by using either old-school methods or a Kraken tracker, then beating his ass in front of his family can be done.

And, just for clarification, reporting him to the FCC will also result in... nothing happening,IRREGARDLESS of what "some people" will try to tell you - just look through the public FCC enforcement record and you will see that the FCC stopped caring about 12 years ago.

[WRYZ926]

The FCC won't even think about looking into things UNLESS threats have been made on air by the ID10T. And the FCC still won't get into any hurry. You have to have things well documented before submitting complaints to the overlords.

Otherwise, do as Randy has said. Track the ID10T down and try talking to them. If that doesn't work, send a cease and desist letter. And if neither of those options work then it's time for a good old fashion attitude adjustment in front of his family and friends.

A fourth option is to get a nice focused log periodical type antenna and park out front of the ID10T's house and jam him every time he decides to show his fourth point of contact to the world.

[OffRoaderX]

57 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

The FCC won't even think about looking into things UNLESS threats have been made on air

Even then, based on the FCC's public enforcement record, the FCC will not do anything .. IF/when that occurs, get recordings of it and take it to the local police - THEY have the power and the will to actually do something.

SOURCE: Public FCC records a AND this happened with one of the repeaters our group uses. Three years later, zero action from the FCC, the Sheriff was ready & willing to act.

[WRYZ926]

4 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

Even then, based on the FCC's public enforcement record, the FCC will not do anything .. IF/when that occurs, get recordings of it and take it to the local police - THEY have the power and the will to actually do something.

SOURCE: Public FCC records a AND this happened with one of the repeaters our group uses. Three years later, zero action from the FCC, the Sheriff was ready & willing to act.

I agree with you. The FCC stated themselves that is what they will actually take into account before thinking about investigating. That does not mean they will actually do anything. Their own track record shows they do not do much at all.

[OffRoaderX]

18 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

Their own track record shows they do not do ANYTHING in these situations.

Fixed that for you..

[WRYZ926]

Here is an interesting video to watch.

How the FCC Finds & Fines Radio Pirates, Jammers and Interference Generators

[OffRoaderX]

4 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

Here is an interesting video to watch.

I would also like to add that lest we not forget there is a HUGE difference between what the FCC CAN do and what the FCC actually does.
Again, I reiterate, that based on the FCC's own public enforcement record of the last 10+ years, statistically speaking, they do not care what happens on CB, MURS, GMRS, or H.A.M. radio with regard to jammers, iD10Ts, and degenerates.

[DominoDog]

The "experts" on my local repeaters ignore them expertly. For real, they are some wizards when it comes to dealing with people. It is a large regional 2m linked system with repeaters that reach into four surrounding states. So with a network that large you are going to have some knuckleheads. Surprisingly few, though, but there are some. Best thing to do is literally ignore them. Sometimes I will hear someone come on and give their "Callsign, monitoring..." and that shuts them up some times. Guess if they feel like the frequency is being monitored, that sounds awfully official and they scram.

The best way to get the FCC to take a look at it, in my humble non-expert non-accredited poor-boy opinion, would be to make sure your offending party is a commercial entity    not always easy to do when it is just some riff-raff. But if you can convince them to become a commercial entity

 

[OffRoaderX]

5 minutes ago, DominoDog said:

Best thing to do is literally ignore them

This ^ is the best advice..
Unfortunately too many people react, argue, complain, etc, etc, over the air and that is the exact kind of attention most jammers want.  If you ignore them and pretend like they aren't even there, and just talk over/around them, without any reaction, they often/usually get bored and go somewhere else to get attention.. Much like a spoiled child.

[Raybestos]

2 hours ago, OffRoaderX said:

Nothing, short of triangulating his position by using either old-school methods or a Kraken tracker, then beating his ass in front of his family can be done.

And, just for clarification, reporting him to the FCC will also result in... nothing happening,IRREGARDLESS of what "some people" will try to tell you - just look through the public FCC enforcement record and you will see that the FCC stopped caring about 12 years ago.

"IF" the offending party should be located, possession of and proficiency with the use of a rettysnitch and/or wouff hong have been reported as effective remedies for such behavior.  Unknown to myself, is whether or not these devices are effective on non-ham problems, or problems occurring on frequencies allocated to other than ham use.  But hey, it might be worth a try.   

 

http://www.natradioco.com/rdey/whrsl.htm

 

 

 

[DONE]

First thing is NOT giving them what they want, which is to be recognized and acknowledged for what they are doing. 

If at all possible, when the show up and there is a conversation going on, continue the conversation without commenting on the problem.  Keep right on talking.  If one of you gets covered up by the guy, DO NOT directly say that.  Claim it's noise, or something else.  If possible have a conversation going on a different channel so that it seems transparent.  But DON'T say anything that gives them recognition.  That is what they want.  If you clear the frequency, again the person 'wins' by default.  Don't let that happen.  If needs be, get several other people into the conversation.  Get a conference call going on telephones so everyone knows whats being said.  And just keep talking like the person isn't even there.  This will frustrate them the most.  If they aren't having any effect, they will go find someone else to screw with. 

Make sure when they get on initially, ask them to REPEAT their call sign.  Act like it's just another conversation.  Act like they are having sign issues if you do this.  Tell them they aren't making the repeater very well and advise them to try again when they get closer.  Mention that they might want a better antenna.  This is regardless of how good their signal is.  Full quieting or not.  THey are weak and barely making the repeater.  But address them the same as you would anyone else that had a poor signal and them tell them to give you a call once they get closer.  Throw your call and wait.  That typically will confuse them and again cause them to be frustrated. 

I can't explain the mentality of folks that do this.  And I use to do it all the time to certain individuals on CB because they had it coming.  But to take time out of your day to just be an asshole.  I don't follow that thought process, and I even identify as an offensive asshole, so I speak from some level of experience here.

But DON'T give them ANY level of satisfaction if you can help it.  If you aren't showing any level of frustration with them, they will be more frustrated than you are.  They are looking for a captive audience.  Don't be one.

 

[WRYZ926]

We had a kid that was using his grampa's radio without permission. He kept getting on the repeater using CB lingo. We ignored him. Then he tried using a totally made up call sign. Again we ignored him. Then he was dumb enough to use his grampa's call sign. One of our members then started talking to him. We got his grampa's name and address from the call sign. We then send an email to the grampa. We haven't heard the kid on the air since.

We have had instances of kerchunkers bouncing from our GMRS and 2m repeaters in quick succession. Again we ignore them while members try pin point the person's location. We have found a couple and just the threat of FCC fines was enough to stop them.

We also programmed our repeater controllers with an anti-kerchunk feature. It keeps the people that just push the PTT in for a second from even opening up the repeater. That has took the wind out of a few kerchunkers sails.

Sometimes a cease and desist letter is enough to stop people and other times it's not. A cargo van with a bunch of mag mount antennas on the roof parked across the street is enough to stop some people too.

[TrikeRadio]

2 hours ago, WRYZ926 said:

We had a kid that was using his grampa's radio without permission. He kept getting on the repeater using CB lingo. We ignored him. Then he tried using a totally made up call sign. Again we ignored him. Then he was dumb enough to use his grampa's call sign. One of our members then started talking to him. We got his grampa's name and address from the call sign. We then send an email to the grampa. We haven't heard the kid on the air since.

I love that.

[WRYZ926]

I should have been more precise when I talked about the kid. He is at least old enough to drive. He was driving grampa's truck the time he used grampa's call sign. The email to grampa was nice in that we offered to help the kid get his license. We also stated the consequences of what could happen if the kid continued using the radio without a license. Grampa has only been licensed for a couple of months.

I bet grampa was pretty upset when he found out the grandson was using his radio(s) without permission. Like I said, we haven't heard the kid on since we sent grampa an email.

[WRUE951]

Not much you can do outside of going to jail.. there is a guy in this community, his name is 'Ron', he lives on Desert Candles and even has a General Ticket... Yet this clown enjoys the art of jamming, cursing people on the radio and playing with several repeaters both on GMRS and WIN  around here..   He loves to make farting and burping sounds...   Dozen of letters by various people have written the FCC, people have encountered him at his front door, yet he keeps playing his games..  Even ignoring him doesn't work,,  his childish game is a routine for him...  Some people don't give a crap, and at the end of the day, there aint nothen you can do about it.  

[SteveShannon]

20 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

I should have been more precise when I talked about the kid. He is at least old enough to drive. He was driving grampa's truck the time he used grampa's call sign. The email to grampa was nice in that we offered to help the kid get his license. We also stated the consequences of what could happen if the kid continued using the radio without a license. Grampa has only been licensed for a couple of months.

I bet grampa was pretty upset when he found out the grandson was using his radio(s) without permission. Like I said, we haven't heard the kid on since we sent grampa an email.

What service was the grandkid abusing?  Must have been amateur radio?

[WRYZ926]

13 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

What service was the grandkid abusing?  Must have been amateur radio?

Yes he was on our 2m repeater. 

We would have just told him to use the proper callsign if he was on our GMRS repeater.

[WRXB215]

I wonder what it took the get the FCC to send that one letter to that one guy? Whoever prompted that action should publish an FCC How To.

[BoxCar]

We used to put a nail through an offender's coax.

[WQAI363]

Yep, that's what I thought!

[WRYZ926]

A generator that is NOT properly shielded for EMI and RFI will definitely jam radios. You would have to be within 150 feet or less with the generator though.

 

And yes I know this is a fact since I would purposely jam certain peoples radios with my truck mounted machine shop while I was in the Army. The truck had a PTO driven 25 Kw generator that would jam all commo equipment within a 150 foot radius of the truck when running. 

[radiozip]

Looking at your location, is this the N3KZ repeater network? That system has been on and off from trolling for as long as I can remember. Usually a coin toss if it's active.

[BriderLV]

When I read your post I thought it for my area since the exact same thing is happening on the repeater closest to me.  Annoying since I'm a NOOB and learning.