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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."
How exactly will they enforce this? Will it be like a second degree offence, like seat belts are in some US states?
"What we have here is a failure to communicate"
The Warden, Cool Hand Luke
How can someone with nothing but a CD player/radio in their car, listen to their iPod on their car stereo, except by using the iTrip?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Walkie-talkies should be banned as their signals can be picked up by an FM receiver (at least my old action man ones could, although the range was about 3 metres)
What about the Neuros' built-in low-power FM transmitting capability? Are those illegal to use in the UK also? It all seems a bit excessive to me, considering the tiny range.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
This could/can be the begining of eclectic microstations. You can tune into a 24/7 iTrip at work/your building/bus stop etc., instead of listening to one of big conglomerate boring stations.
My other sig is an ambulance!
Some early/mid 90's cars with cd players added in the trunk broadcast on like channel 88. something, which is what the user tunes to, to listen to cds.
(This is before 6 cd changers in-dash existed)
This is the same thing. Would these be illegal in the UK too?
GriffinTech should be paying for this spot because I never heard of this thing and I just plopped down my credit card! $35 + Shipping. It is the coolest thing around. I can't wait to use this....no more wires plugging into a tape deck!
Ignored Since 1973
Many years ago I remember reading a British electronics hobbyist magazine which had an article on how to build a metal detector. There was a warning that before using it you needed to go to a government office and get a pipe finders license.
This is no exaggeration. I had no TV for 6 years and those gits hounded me relentlessly. They kept sending me threatening letters warning of a possible 1000 fine for not having a TV license even though I didn't have a TV. They made me sign a form declaring that I had no TV set, which I did, and then they sent me another one, and another one, and I phoned them and told them and then they sent and inspector to my house!
When I moved house, they started sending the letters again, which I signed and returned. A week or two later a poster went up on the billboard across the road saying "3 addresses at Himalayan Way do not have Television Licenses. We know who they are."
I was so tempted to go out with a can of paint and write "At least one of them has no TV set" but I didn't. A year later I bought a TV and a damned license. Now I spend too much time as a TV zombie and not enough time writing code.
Television is a powerful opiate and population control machanism. I admire people who can control it. I'm succumbing again.
Stick Men
The FM range 88 - 108 MHz has been used for wireless microphones for ages - how are these Griffin Itrips any different?
Video Game cheats, hints a
Certain models of the XM Radio use a small FM transmitter to send the audio to the car's stereo system. Are XM radio's illegal in the UK?
Elijah Chancey www.elijahsadventure.com nomadic IT consultant, bicycling across america "all that you touch / and all
Why the fuss over low power FM? Because it allows anyone to become a broadcaster or content creator. By raising the specter of 'interference', broadcasters and others can FUD the legislatures into banning enabling technologies like this.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Indeed. I live in the US, I don't own a TV (CNN and Faux News? No thanks). I get much of my news from the BBC's website. Government-controlled? Is that why Blair and Alistair Campbell and friends are so upset with them lately?
Christ , get up to date, that was back in the 60s!
These days you just get teenagers and other retards broadcasting from the top of a tower block
with a directional microwave link to the studio so they're harder to track down by the police.
How does this affect CD changers that use the same trick - namely transmitting a low power FM signal that your car stereo can pick up?
In the US, Part 15 of the FCC regulations governs unlicensed radio transmitters, and basically says two things: first, there are specific bands where you can operate unlicensed with specified power levels (like the 902-928 and 2.4GHz bands), and second, you can transmit anywhere else, including the broadcast bands, with much lower power levels (not specified in actual transmitter power, but in microvolts/meter of received signal strength at a specified difference).
Thus, all these very low power transmitters that talk in the broadcast bands are legal here.
Many other countries don't have nearly so liberal a policy about unlicensed transmitters -- that's why WiFi isn't technically legal in some places (like the Caribbean island that was the topic of an article a few weeks ago) and gadgets like this aren't allowed in the UK.
Although we like to bitch about "big gummint" in the US, at least in the communications arena US policies are far more open than in other parts of the world.
Another (off topic) example: radio scanner enthusiasts here like to complain because it's illegal to listen to cellular phone transmissions. But we can listen to damn near anything else, including police radio, while in many countries listening to any non-broadcast (or non-ham) radio service is strictly forbidden.
You got it precisely.
There is, however, a (d) -- to use the concept of jurisprudence (which is valid in the UK as well as the US, since both are based on common law) to decline to convict someone of breaking an unjust law.
Which is why serving on a jury is one of the most important things you can do. No, it's generally not fun, it's a pain in the ass and a disruption from what you want to do, but it's still important. Especially if you can get on a jury that can affect the ruling in a case regarding an unjust law.
I don't believe the UK has juries like we do in the US, so it may not be applicable there, but it certainly is in every US state (except, perhaps, Louisiana)
In sweden, it would sound like this:
"Hello, we've noticed you don't pay a television license. Do you have a TV?"
"No"
"We detected a TV from our van, inside your property."
"No you didn't. Must be a mistake."
"Sir, I can hear [insert name of crappy US sitcom here] theme coming from inside your appartment."
"You must be imagining it."
"Sir, if we need to, we can get a warrant to enter the premises and be back within the hour."
"No you can't."
"Damn you right. We can't. But if you don't pay your license we'll taunt you again!"
The television license inspectors do not have the right to enter your house unless you admit them. And they would not get a warrant even if they tried. Only crimes above a certain severity can give them a warrant to enter your house.
I bought an iTrip for use in my 2000 VW Golf GLS (no Raintronic, so no weird coating on the windshield). It doesn't work. It never has. The car's stereo can't pick it up, even if I hold the iPod up through the open sunroof so the whip antenna on the back of the car can see it directly without the sheet metal of the car in the way. I have a European radio retrofitted into the car but that should have no effect as the only difference in the FM band is that it will try to tune to even-numbered frequencies as well as odd ones. (Too bad transmitters won't broadcast on those freqs, as I guarantee no regular commercial station in the US will be licensed for an even numbered frequency.)
Anyone want to buy it? Seriously. I want to get rid of the thing. My solution is going to be hardwiring an adapter to the car's CD changer plug and adding a switch that lets me toggle between the CD changer (I got one used off another VW owner, cheap) and the RCA inputs.
And the other FM transmitter I have, a Belkin TuneCast, doesn't work either -- if a radio broadcast so much 'looks' at it crosseyed, it's static hell.
Low-power FM transmission is, in my experience, a joke and a marketing tool. It ranges from nonexistent to having more static than an interplanetary broadcast from Martians.
i am a soviet space shuttle
This is unusual.
I'm not sure of the laws in practice here (perhaps I should have RTFA) but I do know that some short-range FM transmitters are allowed in the UK, depending on power and frequency. It is of course illegal to transmit anywhere in the FM broadcast band (87.5-108MHZ) and this seems to be where this iTrip is broadcasting. However it's power is such that it can only transmit 30ft, which I thought was legal in the UK, I mean the signal from this thing is not going to leave your house, and we've been able to buy FM hi-fi senders in the UK for years now (though mostly through mail order and thus probably not legally).
This law is not heavilly enforced, and I believe that it's outdated. The law should be changed to allow domestic transmissions of a certain power, though this will be difficult to do since what happens if you drive up the highway with your iTrip or take it to work, you're bound to interfere with what someone's listening to. Perhaps a domestic FM frequency at the top or bottom of the commercial broadcast band could be reserved for such devices, provided they do not exceed a certain power level. This would be a great solution to the problem and would allow a flood of currently pointlessly illegal devices to enter the market.