In a never-ending quest to have a nice meal at a restaurant without having to listen to the continual “Beeeeep” and both ends of the conversation on those cursed walkie-talkie phones, I discovered that one could buy hand-held cell phone jammers.
However, they appear to violate FCC regs or state regsor something in most if not all of the United States. So my question is, does anyone know if they are allowed under any conditions? That is, power less than xxx milliwatts, or only in the following states/counties, or …?
(I don’t have anything against folk using their regular cell phones, if they talk in a normal tone and don’t shout at the top of their lungs, but that damned continual beeping is as annoying as being bitten by mosquitoes, and having to listen to the other end of the conversation which is usually turned up REAL LOUD is just unbearable. )
Note: I’m not asking for advice on how to illegally do something, but rather how to legally do it…or even if I can legally do it.
Mods, if this is better suited to MPSIMS or IMHO, please move it with my apologies.
Radio transmitters and things that can generate RF energy are regulated by the FCC in order to ensure that there’s no interference with other frequencies, and to ensure that there’s nothing to interfere with permitted and/or licenses uses of frequencies. Given that, I don’t know that there’s a specific regulation outlawing the devices per se, but there’s nothing currently approved by the FCC for such public use.
The more interesting question is whether passive “jamming” is permitted. I know that my local Sam’s Club and local Lowes both act as natural Faraday cages, but I wonder if there’s anything in federal code prohibiting intential installation of a signal grounding type of barrier. I would like to think that private property rights trump the rights of cell phone users, but there’s so much going against private property owners these days, that I can’t help but to wonder.
I’m looking for the actual statute but not finding it. I have read it previously.
ETA: Well hell, that’s what I get for searching for a good story. Scooped again!
Cell phone jamming was a plot hole in an episode of “Veronica Mars.” Part of someone’s alibi was that he couldn’t have used a cell phone to trigger an explosion because he was inside a casino and the casino jammed cell communications. Nope.
As an aside, has there ever been a prosecution of someone using one of the portable jammers? I am in a restaurant and have one that I am using. How would anyone know?
So how much retrofitting would it take to turn a restaurant into a Faraday cage? If it was cheap and feasible, I could see people doing it and advertising the fact.
I used to work in a Faraday cage, testing and tuning radios that were not licensed for use in Canada.
The first one we had at work was of astonishingly-primitive construction: a frame of 2x4 lumber with two layers of copper screening, one inside and one outside. AC power for the equipment inside was passed through filters. The door had two copper fringes, one on the inside and one on the outside, that contacted copper areas on the doorframe.
It was quite open; it was placed on the shop floor and the occupant inside was plainly visible. A fan ouside had no problem blowing air through it. But tune a portable radio to a powerful local station and take it inside and close the door, and the music produced from the incoming external radio signals faded to a hiss of thermal noise produced within the circuits of the radio itself.
Later Faraday cages were solid metal rooms that resembled bank vaults. These required ventilation systems. And there were filters and screens on the air ducts.
I see no reason an auditorium would not be built with a screen layer in the walls. That much copper screening or metal sheathing would be expensive though; it would all have to be electrically joined together and then connected to ground.
Would it be possible to add a cellular transceiver that would only pass calls to some phones? Say, ones that were registered at reception as being part of Emergency Services?
The casino could’ve line the walles of the gaming floor with metal to creat a Faraday cage without (AFAIK) breaking any laws. Law enforcement (the Secret Service in particular) are allowed to use jammers.
I read it when it was still there. It seemed to be intended for European cellphone frequencies. So it would have been illegal in the US even if jammers could be legal in the US… because it would be transmitting on the wrong frequencies.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure some Casinos do. Especially in their highest stakes rooms. That prevents someone behind the table texting or calling to alert someone of the cards they see or whatever. It’s just too risky to have people in contact like that…from their point of view.
Shouldn’t casino security be watching players anyway? For instance, I know you’re not supposed to ever put your hands under the table.
Cell phone jamming is just wrong. Apart from people who legitimately need to be reachable at all times, like doctors, many people depend on cellular technology for broadband access.
Yeah, but everything has its place. Private property is private property. Maybe part of my accepting you onto my property is recognition that your phone signals are blocked (not jammed, as that’d be illegal). You then have your right not to enter the property. In fact, I’d argue that I’d prefer blocking to checking my cell phone (certain businesses and government offices, for example).
Plus, there was once a dark age when no one had cell phones.
