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Comment by nativeit | Hacker News Reader

> The PIRATE Act [2020, HR583] permits the FCC to fine both pirate radio operators and the property owners/landlords who permit pirate radio activity on their property. The risk for property owners is substantial, with maximum fines of $119,555 per day, capped at a statutory maximum of $2,391,097.

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Wild. How soon until the standard housing lease boilerplate contains clauses like “you may not transmit any electromagnetic radiation at all under any circumstances whatsoever” as a means of landlords trying to cover their booties?

More seriously, I’d be mighty concerned if I were a landlord and saw someone putting up a ham antenna, regardless of whatever licensing they claimed to have. It’s a bad day for public radio.

Most of the contracts should already mention “No illegal activities”, which should cover this, right?

"How could I know this is illegal, if it was sold on Amazon and had great reviews?"

The same way you would know that flying a drone, today, without a license is illegal in the USA.

We are required, in our society, to keep ourselves informed. Ignorance is no excuse for breaking laws in the US.

If that’s your defense in court, good luck.

General license HAM operator here. The good thing is that HAM licenses are trivially auditable as the FCC provides a direct lookup on anyone licensed so anyone at all can verify their status. HAM bands are typically enforced by fellow operators who will work to triangulate and locate people who shouldn't be on it. There are even organized competitions where they practice locating devices.

if you really want to get them riled, spell it H.A.M.

—7.3—

(Just ham not HAM)

Us real hams (20 wpm extra since 1977) know how to spell it. I'm always amazed how "ham" became "HAM"

I think the habit arises from people assuming ham was also short for something like AM and FM is, or in computers, since PC was an initialism, Mac should get the same treatment too.

"Your honor, I'd like to enter as evidence for the prosecution exhibits A, "Ueber das Gesetz der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum" by Max Planck; B, a Wi-Fi router; C, this cheap crappy USB charger; and D, their kitchen lamp.

And as Exhibit E, their housecat.

What they don't want is absentee or paid off landlords affording pirates an additional layer of protection. The article even points this out, if the building owners cooperate, and help the FCC end the broadcasts, it's highly unlikely the issue would be perused to that level.

Such a clause would eliminate 99.999%+ of potential tenants: Almost everyone has a cell phone, and also a microwave oven, and all of these things deliberately transmit electromagnetic radiation.

(And then we have the countless unintentional radiators to contend with.)

It also rules out people who use any form of light in their household... including candles.

But I do believe the author was jokingly referencing landlords adding generic catch-all clauses without understanding the issue, and understood it went to such lengths, and found that funny. (I did)

You don't even need a light. The tenant themselves would emit lots of infrared radiation. Not to mention the black body radiation from any other items on the property that are hotter than absolute zero.

Or people themselves (IR).

these rules aren't there to rule you out, they want you to pay their mortgage after all. the rule is to get rid of you by terminating the contract if you cause more headaches than your rent money is worth.

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