Slashdot Mirror
Low-power FM Transmitters Banned in UK
Acey writes "The BBC News is reporting that the Griffin iTrip falls foul of the UK Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 (PDF). In short, the iTrip is an unlicensed FM transmitter and that's not allowed. The UK distributor, A M Micro, have pulled the iTrip. More ominously they warn that "Use of the iTrip in the UK therefore constitutes an offence and can lead to prosecution of the User". Guess that makes me an outlaw, because you'll have to pry my iTrip from my cold, dead hands."
-Guess that makes me an outlaw, because you'll have to pry my iTrip from my cold, dead hands.
No, it would just take a uniformed constable. Let's not overestimate ourselves here.
It seems like the legislature, the broadcasters, and the consumers, ought to be able to work out an exception provision to the existing laws.
Specifically, they ought to allow unlicensed transmitters below a certain output power (anyone know what the iTrip's broadcast power is?).
I mean, the spectrum licensees have a vested and understable interest in keeping their airwaves free of interference, but I don't think low-power transmissions like these had been envisioned when the law was codefied (receivers were a wee bit less sensitive and precise in 1949, methinks).
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Why is this marked as informative? It shows gross ignorance. The BBC is independent of the government via mandate. In fact, the BBC seems to institutionally take the stance when reporting the news that anything from the government must wrong, irrespective of whether they're left, right or centre. The BBC isn't owned, or controlled or funded by the government. The only possible hold the government has is over the renewing of the BBC's license (is the right term?), which is generally valid for longer than the maximum length of time the current government can sit before they have to call a general election.
The UK has *not* just passed a new law banning the iTrip specifically or deliberately, as half the posters on slashdot seem to believe.
The distributors of the iTrip, having taken legal advice, have decided that use of the iTrip probably constitutes a breach of an old law about FM broadcasting and have therefore chosen not to distribute it here.
Nothing has actually changed and British police are not about to start hunting down people with suspicious bulges on the top of their iPods.
erroneous: look me up in a dictionary
The wireless telegraphy act makes sense. We're only a small country and a typical radio FM transmitter can cover a fair proportion (about 1/10-1/20) of the population. Just my twiddling a screw in most FM transmitters, you can get it to broadcast on any frequency, and (for instance) stick it in your local neighbourhood and broadcast something other than your local radio station on a specific frequency. Video senders (boxes that transmit video signals over UHF and FM bandwidths so a TV upstairs can pick it up) were banned for a while for similar reasons. They found a way to make them legal and everything was fine :-)
anything with a range more than 6 feet is likely to reach either the apartment above or the apartment below me. 30 feet and it will reach about 10 other apartments in my block. but there's a simple alternative: cordless headphones. OK so you won't be able to tune in from your car radio, but you will be able to listen to your iPod (or any other music source) from up to 100 ft away. I think cordless headphones use an unlicensed UHF band so there's no issue of interference with legit radio stations, though obviously if too many people buy the 'phones in one neighborhood they'll run into problems.
the ultimate solution is to have a device that broadcasts a local DAB (digital radio) signal. That will eliminate most interference issues (as well as radio hiss) and allow you to view track info on your digital radio. DAB is starting to take off in a big way in the UK now so somesuch gadget is probably not that far down the line.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
No, nobody is going to bother to enforce the law. It it doesn't cause a problem who cares? It is a complete non-story.
Like the ability of Freemen of London to heard sheep (or not) over London Bridge lots of laws lie around long after the environment they related to has changed out of all recognition.
"...someone from their department of silly walks and radios showed up to talk to us about it."
I can't believe I'm reading this crap!
What's so stupid about licensing the use of your EM spectrum and then making sure that those who've PAID FOR bandwidth can actually use it without fear of interference from unlicensed transmissions? There are portions of the spectrum specifically allocated to unlicensed transmitters, use those if you want but stop fucking up all the other thousands of services that depend on spectrum management to do business.
That was classic intercourse!