Related subject - apparently, GPS jammers are being marketed also. Likely, the same legal issues apply:
Initially, most interest in jamming GPS reception was for military purposes, but there are now jammers being operated by private citizens. Sales and delivery personnel who wish to defeat tracking of their lunch breaks or personal stops, for instance.
As long as it’s on private property and clearly posted as blocking/jamming, people who legitimately need to be reachable at all times can choose not to enter.
Several years ago, when the subject of jammers came up on a local talk station, there was a caller who said he was a building contractor who did that - he would physically RF shield your place of business for you. He admitted it wasn’t cheap, though. He said most of his customers were medical clinics, who were very concerned with RF interference and willing to pay.
Such as firemen, EMTs, and emergency services? If they have to respond and they rely on cell technology for any communications lots of people are going to have a bad day.
Based on TV coverage of the WSOP the last several years, Binion’s Horseshoe and the Rio at least are not generally shielded as people are shown on cell phones constantly when away from the table.
Well, yeah. If you’re tethered, just don’t go in. Everybody gets some time off once in a while. Remember, these people all worked pre-cell, too.
The point is they may need to go in there on a call. People occasionally have heart attacks on private property, last time I checked. This is the one of the reasons why booby traps aren’t allowed, people may have a legitimate reason to go on private property in an emergency or in the course of their duties.
A lot of emergency communications is done on frequencies adjacent to those used by cell phones. It could potentially jam the radios as well.
I misunderstood. That’s actually a good point I’ll have to think about.
How do emergency responders deal with dead zones today? I still see more line of sight radios in use by on the scene responders than cellular technology. Once a team of responders is on sight, radio is much more suited for rapid communication amongst teams. So I’m guessing that a blocked building presents no special challenges.
I think there should be certain areas that are cell-free as long as there is plenty of disclosure and the coverage is limited to very specific areas. “This theater/casino/studio is using celluar jamming. Your mobile phone wil not function past this point” should suffice. Those emergency responders will have to take their chances. We don’t see them avoiding elevators, airplanes, basements, subways, tunnels, valleys and other areas where there are no signs indicating lack of coverage. At least with a sign, they’re making an informed choice and they know to grab the walkie-talkie on the way to that call.
I’ve heard (totally anecdotally) that cell jammers are banned in American prisons because the corrections officers’ unions have squawked.
Even standard issue basic radios normally used by EMS folks are more like 3-5 watts compared to cell phones at .4-1 Watts IIRC.
In addition the dispatchers are often pounding out some very serious wattage covering the better part of a county either directly or via multiple repeaters.
We could hit out dispatchers in Fresno from the north side of I-5 climbing up towards Santa Clarita for a little while. Thats pushing almost 150 miles.
Look, a business is free to ban people with cell phones from their property (every golf tourney I’ve been to prohibits cell phones from being brought onto the course), but the point is that the airwaves are ultimately public property. People simply can’t sieze parts of spectrum because they find it convient, whether that’s to broadcast a radio program or stop others from using spectrum by jamming it. That’s the basis of the law. Cell phones can be an annoyance but that doesn’t mean hijacking the airwaves is justified.
Well, no, they’re banned in American prisons (and everywhere else in America) because of the statute I posted upthread.
But can jammers be set up so they are effective only on your private property, but not in adjacent areas belonging to others, or nearby common areas open to the public? If so then I accept your answer as sufficient justification.
I’m talking about blocking, not jamming. There’s no law preventing blocking that’s been cited in this thread. But why shouldn’t a property owner have the right to block electromagnetic radiation from entering their property? Every building structure will have to be built from something transparent to prevent sunlight from entering.
A thought, fwiw:
Has anyone tried blocking via paint/coatings? If the particles can be embedded in wood panels, why not suspended in a coating and sprayed on - methinks such a coating would be an instant hit - and I’d love to see the FCC out busting every paint shop in the country (hint: if they can mix pigments, they could mix bootleg Faraday emulsions)
Not the best example. You still have to find a phone, which is difficult in a crowded restaurant, and just as annoying as a moron talking on a cell phone, as opposed to quietly handling some things entirely over the cell phone with minimal disruption to everyone else.
It won’t. All it takes is one missed call due to that and the owner is responsible for a death or worse.
They aren’t taking their chances. You are, as is everyone else who might get involved in an accident or be the victim of a violent crime.
This is what gets me: The people who want to block cell phones simply don’t like people talking around them. The people who can’t allow cell phones to be blocked save people’s lives. There is a distinct difference in importance here, and the pro-blockers are on the trivial end of the spectrum. If you think your response to a mild annoyance should be allowed to put people’s lives at risk, you really should re-evaluate your priorities.
It doesn’t matter that emergency personnel could work before cell phones: The reasons to block them all boil down to “I don’t like morons talking around me” which is not sufficient to put even one life at risk. Nobody’s life is endangered by some moron talking loudly in a restaurant. Blocking cell phones isn’t just an extra risk, it’s a risk created for no good reason.
Why does it matter if the reason is good or not? Lots of things happen regardless of whether there’s a good reason or not. Some of them can endanger lives. Living is dangerous business; if one doesn’t like it, he can always stop.
Aside from that, there’s no such thing as a single, truly indispensable person of any capacity that must be absolutely depended on to save a life. That person would would be a virtual slave, and never be allowed to leave his place of work, lest he take too long to respond, be in a cellular dead zone, or be run over by a car. There’s always someone else who can do a job if the primary isn’t reachable for any number of reasons that aren’t due to having his cellular signal blocked. There are already a lot of cellular dead zones, intentional or not. Where’s the outrage that we’re not forcing property owners to install cellular repeaters?
If it were really deemed a matter of public safety, I could imagine it eventually being specified in building codes, rather than a more high level law, but such codes don’t seem to be in place at present. Note that they could be enacted at a local level. If it was added to the codes, fixing buildings which are already Faraday cages would be expensive, perhaps impossible in some cases. There would probably have to be a provision for grandfathering in pre-code construction, as with a lot of other such codes, as well as provision for places such as medical clinics who might be able to justify shielding their building on the basis of sensitivity of their equipment to RFI. Modifying buildings to RF shield them would simply become a violation of code.
I’m not sure what you mean with the beeper comment. The problem isn’t my dispatch talking to me, it’s me talking to my dispatch if/when I get in trouble.
Again, jammers could potentially block the radio frequencies we use, as well.
St. Urho
Paramedic