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jimlongley wrote: . . . If the GPS device is attached to my property, my vehicle, on my property, my driveway, and it doesn't have any identifying marks, it seems to me that I could remove it, just like I might remove some other part of the car, and throw it away.

Wouldn't it be more fun to attach it to some other vehicle . . . perhaps a police officer's personal car? Or the car of a police officer's spouse . . . who would later get an anonymous message that their SO was having them followed?

Might upset domestic tranquility a bit.

From one of my Facebook friends:
http://www.lightinthebox.com/Portable-G ... 23350.html

Broadcasting a signal with the intent to block another ssignal is illegal.

Two hams discussing whatever usings radios in the same car is not illegal. Destroying the thing might be more likely to get you charged with willful destruction of govt property. However, the best idea yet would be to remove it and affix it to a more lucrative target.

I think it would be fun to attach it to a bunch of helium balloons.

Anybody here read C J Box' latest book, "Nowhere to Run"?

The bad guys hooked a sat phone to a deer's antlers and the semi-bad guys with their tracking device were in a dither when the deer was coming through the Wyoming mountains toward them....

I ain't gonna' tell you how it ends.

PeteCamp wrote:

Broadcasting a signal with the intent to block another ssignal is illegal.

Two hams discussing whatever usings radios in the same car is not illegal. Destroying the thing might be more likely to get you charged with willful destruction of govt property. However, the best idea yet would be to remove it and affix it to a more lucrative target.

So it would require carrying on a conversation or sending some sort of information back and forth, at a power level sufficient to swamp the receiver, on a frequency not allowed to hams except on a low power, non-interfering, basis, sorry, still illegal, even carrying on a conversation.

If I destroy it, they would have to prove I knew it was government property, that I destroyed it, that I even knew it was there.

Isn't it legal in Texas to shoot trespassers?

My life is so boring that I would get no satisfaction out of them viewing my travels on a map.

Now, years ago, when the polo shirt bandit was robbing banks, my ex-wife, with a local agency, convinced the U.S. Marshals to follow me for three weeks. I really felt for those poor guys and wondered how they stayed awake.

Mike1951 wrote:Now, years ago, when the polo shirt bandit was robbing banks, my ex-wife, with a local agency, convinced the U.S. Marshals to follow me for three weeks. I really felt for those poor guys and wondered how they stayed awake.

It wasn't as funny back then.

The Last Ride of the Polo Shirt Bandit
http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/1997-03-01/feature4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Unless you subscribe, you can't see the entire article, but

Guess was 46 years old, and he was a big man—more than six feet tall, around 240 pounds. He had graying blond hair and a square face.

was too close for comfort.

I have a GMC SUV and a GMC Pickup, yesterday I got a call from On-Star and told them what I thought of their product. They asked me if I knew On-Star for my pickup was about to expire and I asked them if they knew I never activated it when I bought it? On-Star is nothing more then a cell phone, GPS and link to the on board computer so they can track and disable my vehicle anytime, for any reason. Just because I have nothing to hide doesn't mean I shouldn't expect privacy as a human right. No way am I going to pay a monthly fee for an intrusion to my privacy, several do-gooders will call 911 if I have an accident, I can read a road map or buy a dedicated GPS and I have it insured against theft.

mortdooley wrote:I have a GMC SUV and a GMC Pickup, yesterday I got a call from On-Star and told them what I thought of their product. They asked me if I knew On-Star for my pickup was about to expire and I asked them if they knew I never activated it when I bought it? On-Star is nothing more then a cell phone, GPS and link to the on board computer so they can track and disable my vehicle anytime, for any reason. Just because I have nothing to hide doesn't mean I shouldn't expect privacy as a human right. No way am I going to pay a monthly fee for an intrusion to my privacy, several do-gooders will call 911 if I have an accident, I can read a road map or buy a dedicated GPS and I have it insured against theft.

Several years ago, just as On-Star was being introduced to the world, another tech support engineer and I had to go do some overnight work in a foreign city (Brooklyn, NY) and the rental car had On-Star.

I knew what it was, but the other guy did not, and we had a classic "What's this button do?" situation happen. "Hey did you see the buttons on the mirror? I wonder what they do?" and all of a sudden the radio is saying "This is the On-Star operator, my name is Jason, what is your emergency?"

ROFL - I had to pull the car over I was laughing so hard.

So it would require carrying on a conversation or sending some sort of information back and forth, at a power level sufficient to swamp the receiver, on a frequency not allowed to hams except on a low power, non-interfering, basis, sorry, still illegal, even carrying on a conversation.

If I destroy it, they would have to prove I knew it was government property

I don't care to argue about this with anyone. I have no idea of your qualifications or expertise in ham radio or radio equipment design. Suffice it to say that the issue is not who or what is transmitting, or even really on what frequency. The issue is the reality that most manufacturers do not design sufficient discrimination into receivers to keep them from being overpowered by nearby transmissions of a legal nature on different bands. This has been a well known problem for many, many years. It began with TV receivers. FCC rulings have almost universally decreed that if you don't want your receiver overpowered by adjacent legal signals, then design and filter it better. No one has to use an illegal frequency. It doesn't even have to be in the same band. A perfectly legal transmission by a ham on a nearby band can shut down numerous types of receivers because of the huge differences in legal, allowable power output by ham radios. As long as the ham radio is not putting out spurious emissions, and is on a legal band, the burden is on the receiver to reject that interference. Unless the GPS owner complained to the ham, he would probably have no idea there was a problem. I could cite numerous technical articles, but it's not worth it.

Suffice to say that on a legal band (and amateur radios have allowable bands everywhere), carrying on a conversation, regardless of mode, or broadcasting certain types of legal information for other hams, it is not illegal to carry on that conversation. If the GPS does not have the adjacent channel rejection, I can filter my transmissions somewhat to assist it in overcoming the blanketing effect. But ultimately it is the problem of the GPS manufacturer.

Anyway, as I said, this is a legal, but not practical solution. And given the current administration and AG Holder, do you really think they wouldn't find you guilty of destruction of govt property?
Pete - AE5J

PeteCamp wrote:

So it would require carrying on a conversation or sending some sort of information back and forth, at a power level sufficient to swamp the receiver, on a frequency not allowed to hams except on a low power, non-interfering, basis, sorry, still illegal, even carrying on a conversation.

If I destroy it, they would have to prove I knew it was government property

I don't care to argue about this with anyone. I have no idea of your qualifications or expertise in ham radio or radio equipment design. Suffice it to say that the issue is not who or what is transmitting, or even really on what frequency. The issue is the reality that most manufacturers do not design sufficient discrimination into receivers to keep them from being overpowered by nearby transmissions of a legal nature on different bands. This has been a well known problem for many, many years. It began with TV receivers. FCC rulings have almost universally decreed that if you don't want your receiver overpowered by adjacent legal signals, then design and filter it better. No one has to use an illegal frequency. It doesn't even have to be in the same band. A perfectly legal transmission by a ham on a nearby band can shut down numerous types of receivers because of the huge differences in legal, allowable power output by ham radios. As long as the ham radio is not putting out spurious emissions, and is on a legal band, the burden is on the receiver to reject that interference. Unless the GPS owner complained to the ham, he would probably have no idea there was a problem. I could cite numerous technical articles, but it's not worth it.

Suffice to say that on a legal band (and amateur radios have allowable bands everywhere), carrying on a conversation, regardless of mode, or broadcasting certain types of legal information for other hams, it is not illegal to carry on that conversation. If the GPS does not have the adjacent channel rejection, I can filter my transmissions somewhat to assist it in overcoming the blanketing effect. But ultimately it is the problem of the GPS manufacturer.

Anyway, as I said, this is a legal, but not practical solution. And given the current administration and AG Holder, do you really think they wouldn't find you guilty of destruction of govt property?
Pete - AE5J

de K5NRA, Then why argue with me? I did say "swamp the receiver" and as such most would understand I did not mean operating in the same frequency or band, and it matters not how much or little rejection the receiver has, if the ham operator is interfering, on purpose, then the ham operator is at fault, which is NOT legal. It is illegal to carry on the converstaion if you know, or even suspect, or should know, that you are causing interference. Lots and lots of FCC case law on that, even up to and including hams interfering with poorly designed telephones which were demodulating signals from properly operating ham stations, not even rf devices. The hams, in multiple cases had to shut down, or confine operation to certain hours, especially in cases of TVI, even including poorly designed TV receivers.

While I agree that the manufacturers are putting out some pretty poor equipment, I have seen lots of evidence of that, including a dimmer switch that worked real good as an rx on 20 cw, without even a high power signal nearby.

When I was the FCC Commercial licensee for NY Telephone Company, for the upstate region of NY State, I was involved as an engineer as well as as a ham, in investigating many such cases, and answering FCC queries and pink slips about them.

I could go into all of the other types of investigations I have done and equipment I have used, but the point remains that if they even suspect you are interfering, on purpose, you will be in as much trouble as if they suspect that you found and removed the offending device. and they would still have to have, including Holder, some sort of indication that the device had been found, which would be quite obvious if you were to suddenly set up a station in your vehicle that was capable of interfering with a 1.5GHz receiver, whether by desensitizing it or by mixing signals.