KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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FCC issues second warning against using radios to commit crimes

Posted: 24 Apr 2021 08:23 AM PDT
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Earlier this week, the FCC issued a second enforcement advisory reminding
amateur and personal radio service operators not to use radio equipment to
commit or facilitate criminal acts. It states:

As we did in our January 17 advisory earlier this year, the Bureau reminds
amateur licensees that they are prohibited from transmitting
“communications intended to facilitate a criminal act� or “messages encoded
for the purpose of obscuring their meaning.� Likewise, individuals
operating radios in the Personal Radio Services, a category that includes
Citizens Band radios, Family Radio Service walkie-talkies, and General
Mobile Radio Service, are prohibited from using those radios “in connection
with any activity which is against Federal, State or local law.�
Individuals using radios in the Amateur or Personal Radio Services in this
manner may be subject to severe penalties, including significant fines,
seizure of the offending equipment, and, in some cases, criminal
prosecution.

In a recent blog post, Jeff, KE9V, wrote, There were rumors that amateur
radio equipment may have been used to organize and coordinate communication
among the rioters.

To which, someone on Twitter replied, Not rumors, fact. I live here. The
rioters used 2m and possibly other bands to coordinate their insanity. I
heard it myself. FCC is preemptively reminding people who apparently need
reminding.

Another commenter linked to a legal document from one of the ongoing
trials. On page 15, theres mention of how Baofengs were used for
communications during the January 6, 2021 march on the Capitol. It did not
say that amateur radio frequencies were used, but, of course, Baofengs can
be programmed to operate on amateur radio frequencies.

I would say that since the FCC felt compelled to issue this warning again
that amateur radio frequencies were definitely used during this incident,
although Im not sure that there is any evidence that licensed amateur radio
operators were involved. Perhaps the warning is just pre-emptive or an
attempt to get hams to more proactively police the frequencies, i.e. if
repeater operators hear illegal activity on their repeater to turn the
repeater off. Or, it could just be a warning that the FCC is listening.

The post FCC issues second warning against using radios to commit crimes
appeared first on KB6NUs Ham Radio Blog.


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Arduino IDE 2.0 adds a ton of features

Posted: 23 Apr 2021 05:44 PM PDT
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This isnt strictly a #hamradio post, but since lots of hams use the Arduino
in their shacks, I thought it worth mentioning. Personally, Im using an
Arduino-powered, K3NG keyer here, and play around with them in other
projects as well.

The big news is that the Arduino folks have released a beta version of
Arduino IDE. Live debugging, code auto-completion, built-in help, and a
streamlined programming workflow are just some of the features available in
this new release.Â*

Code help seems like the most useful feature to me. As you type, a menu
appears showing what valid options are available to complete your line of
code.Â*Hovering over any function in your code will also reveal what it does
and what parameters are required.

The new debugging tools also look really useful. Instead of relying on
outputs to the serial monitor, youll now be able to add breakpoints, step
through a program line-by-line, monitor variables as your program is
executing, and even modify the values of those variables. Thats pretty
powerful stuff.Â*

I havent yet installed this on my RPi4 development system, but will be
doing so the next time I fire it up for some Arduino hacking. You can get
the latest beta version by going to the Arduino downloads page.

The post Arduino IDE 2.0 adds a ton of features appeared first on KB6NUs
Ham Radio Blog.