From: rats@cbnewsc.cb.att.com (RS PRO-2006)
Subject: Re: Idiots in Congress
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:56:48 GMT
Followup-To: rec.radio.shortwave,alt.radio.scanner


In <1992Oct9.124302.21941@netcom.com> Richard Crisp states:

|Well our unworthy lawmakers have really screwed up the scanner business
|by passing a ridiculous law banning the sale of receivers capable of 
|receiving cellular frequencies. I suppose they have even benned cellular
|phones themselves (although I haven't read the text), since a cellular
|phone is a receiver capable of receiving cellular transmissions.

Since some cellular telephones have a keypad sequence that unlocks
them to function as cellular receivers, this must mean that any
cellular telephone with this test sequence is an illegal unit? I
assume cellular phones have to go under the FCC Part 15 regulations
for certification.

Hey, now that's a thought. If cellular phones are found to be exempt
from this regulation, manufacture a cheap cellular telephone with
an enhanced keypad escape sequence and sell those on the market!!!

|I wonder if selective voltmeters have been banned too? what about
|Spectrum analyzers? How about mixers that could be used with
|a scanner and an RF generator to heterodyne a cellular frequency down
|to the 440 mhz ham band? Etc, Etc,....

Well, if a collection of internal parts for an M-16 assault rifle
constitutes an automatic weapon under BATF regulations...

|This garbage thought process our fools on the hill have expoused
|reminds me of efforts to ban so called Assault Rifle, and large 
|capacity magazines: Lo protect us from ourselves, we are too stupid
|to do so! And you could tell how it would pass for sure: the media
|was already starting the scare tactics, the Washington Post article,
|the spot on 48Hours, etc... it was all designed to influence the
|Congresscritters. No, when the media decides something has to go
|they go after it. We really do not control anything,

The "Golden Rule": _He_Who_Has_the_Gold_Makes_the_Rules_.

|The sad thing about this new law is that in a few years the problem
|of cellular privacy would solve itself as over crowded urban areas will
|force a change to digital technology anyway for better spectrum utilization.
|Meanwhile we have the nose of the Camel in our tent: the precedent has
|been set. I now envision the police arguing for privacy citing the cellular 
|ban. next will be the fire and other emergency services. Finally they
|will ban receiving everything except for broadcasts and amateur services.

|A very dark day indeed!

I was looking at the specifications that came with Bob Parnass' R7100
and if things continue, scanner receivers will look to have the coverage
of the German version of the R7100: basically, ham bands mostly!

Maybe some enterprising company could manufacture enhanced receiver
section digital cellular telephones with an enhanced keypad escape
sequence, that, when initiated, will act as scanner receivers with the
cellular channel display on where the telephone digits show up, eh?

Either a cellular phone is exempt, or it isn't, right?

|I will vote for no incumbents in the Congress!

Unfortunately, this isn't going to really change much. Too many of our
representatives tend toward the legal profession, and, they have their
own special nitway way of evaluating things without reference to physical
principles.[*]

It's ironic that we are becoming so much like the Europeans that the
Founding Fathers of the U.S. expended blood and personal treasure to
differentiate us from...

Anyway, now that the we are f***ed, we will need to do scanner stuff
differently now.

[1] Maybe a (*gasp*) smuggling operation from Canada for cellular
frequency scanners? Yeah, they could even have a NEW television
cop show based on this: Detroit Vice, battling the dastardly cellular
electronic terrorists and their nefarious infernal scanner receivers.

[2] Separating the firmware frequency ranges currently burnt into
the microprocessor memory into a seperate ROM that would be socketed.

This will allow a new industry to rise up selling cellular coverage
ROMs that plug in, and avoid any nasty copyright infringement lawsuits
involving copying the active portion of the microprocessor code.

[3] Go the AOR route and move the frequency limit range to EPROM, and
reprogramable via a couple of jumper cables and keypad sequences. I
would very much hope that our good friends at TANDY would contract out
new scanner specifications to include this stipulation.

----
[*] -- I saw a couple of months ago in some sort of legal magazine a
court decision that boggled my mind. It was about the manufacture of
a heater in a building who was being sued because at the place
where the particular unit was being used, someone was using flammable
solvents to process some product. The heater ignited the fumes. The
lawsuit contended that the heater company should have given warning
about this danger. The heater company contended that it was an
obvious danger. The heater company won the first time in court. On
appeal, they lost. The appellate court stated that an improper
discovery process was used, that indeed, IT WASN'T COMMON KNOWLEDGE
THAT A GAS POWERED HEATER USED OXYGEN FROM THE SURROUNDING AIR TO
SUSTAIN COMBUSTION.
Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave