There used to be a great tv programme on in the small hours at weekends called “how it’s made “.
This was initially fascinating but also had the same effect as said YouTube videos after 10/15 mins.
Check that out if you want an alternative to help you sleep 
Football wins! It’s on almost all the time, it seems. 
Back in the day when the CQ worldwide competition was on the group of guys I was with we had two set ups
Transmitting up to 1kw each never a problem I believe they are still doing it. The only problem was the generator should have been a bit bigger lights dim on transmitting 
Best getting it from the horses mouth when the case is concluded.
How do you know they’re running more power than allowed Nidge ? Do they mention this on air ?
Because many don’t know how to use an external amplifier resulting in excessive spectral occupancy that you don’t get from a transceiver on it’s own, unless the operator has gone under the hood and randomly twiddled every adjustable component. That and the start-up noise from the fans on their heavily over processed audio is quite a giveaway. RF is not a mystical entity, that’s why pathloss, refraction/reflection, etc can be modelled to a high degree of accuracy. I used to do RF fingerprinting of transmitters, in a previous life, as an aid to identifying types of equipment and users. But to be honest I couldn’t care less if someone uses more power than they are permitted. It’s a universal law that give someone an inch they’ll take a yard, and then embellish their innocence with pseudoscience and superstition.
Ahh, thanks for the answer. Closest I came to anything like this was in the early 80’s. Had one of the AM Citizen band radios ( Cobra 148 GTL ) a few times I used it with a 50w burner amp, but neighbours complained it was affecting their tv, so only used to use this very late at night ( and only occasionally)
bit off topic but this one from the ofcom news desk was interesting… at least to consider the crime and sentence
I cannot see anyone being given anything of any significance for using an FCC hack, given this guy was repeatedly doing what he should not with wilful intent
etc etc
I did see this, but the way I see it, as sad as it is if you alter the settings to fly outside of the Regs then sorry the rules are the rules. We are having enough problems with this currant consolations without people giving them more reasons to ground us. Just my views.
Saw it yes… apart from finding this guy quite annoying to watch (he was OK, but tried to get dramatic and isn’t the most engaging)… I found this a cryptic non-story…
My concern is that we will never get the facts, in the news or out (Gatwick rings a bell)…
I think the real ‘story’ is “can he authorities really detect if you are using an FCC hack”, and if so why do the police care… you’d have to be doing something that looks illegal first to raise the flags…
I suspect that those that do use the hack are likely to be untouched… but that’s my perception
I have the capability to use the FCC power levels with my UAS’s, the hardware supports it without risking interference to other spectrum users, and it’s just a value change in the firmware code. Having the capability to do this is not illegal, nor is performing the simple modification. The onus is on the authorities to prove that you were exceeding the permitted power levels at the time of the flight.
I am familiar with the case of interference to radio hams in the Humber region. OFCOM only got involved because it had been going on for quite some time. The process would have involved the person responsible for the repeater being abused, and those affected by the interference, to compile detailed logs over a period of time. These would be submitted to OFCOM so they could determine if the allocation of resources were justifiable. Next they would perform the investigation to glean enough evidence to secure a successful prosecution. Also bare in mind this was intentional and malevolent interference.
Somehow me changing a bit value from a zero to a one in the code to increase my power level to 700milliwatts, for a flight that may only last less than ten minutes, would not make even the slightest blip on the authority’s radar, unless I was doing something else totally reckless to attract their attention. All this maybe moot anyway. 2.4GHz and 5GHz are shared allocations, with segments assigned for amateur radio use, with power levels of up to 400Watts permitted. Currently radio hams in the UK are not permitted to install equipment any airborne platform, this includes model aircraft and other SUAS’s. This could very soon change as there’s a consultation reposing that this restriction be lifted, along with increasing the permitted power levels. I don’t think I’ll be running 400+ Watts from my foamy Hobbyking Bixler, but allowing up to 10Watts for amateur radio UAS experiments is not infeasible, though realistically 5Watts or less is more than enough.
What I don’t understand is why are drones on the ever more congested Wi-Fi channels? If we are classed in the remote-controlled models area why aren’t we on 27megs?
You are definitely old school. 27MHz was limited to a very few 10KHz channels, and if Gino the Italian CB’er had his "Burner on your model would crash. 2.4GHz has an allocation that’s 80MHz wide. All modern 2.4GHz RC systems use a mixture of frequency hopping and spread spectrum techniques that will use all of the 80MHz available. There will be a maximum capacity of users, but last year my club had over 40 models in the air at the same time as part of the BMFA record attempt, with a mixture of different radio systems (Futaba, Spectrum, FrSky, IRC Ghost, etc), with no issues whatsoever.i
Sad am I?
I see Ken in your name? Not married to Karen are you?
Sometimes I need fcc to make sure I stay safely connected to my drones. I choose when and where to do this. Sometimes rules are shit and nonsensical, made up by people that don’t have a clue. Just like the current “consultations” that are going to stop kids being able to fly a wee drone inside their own house without having an operator ID? Really?
Yes I am that old long time since I have flow an RC model.
isn’t it also data transmission for video that is an issue… get a limited bandwidth and data transfer on the dedicated model frequencies
but I believe you get better distance and penetration with the lower than higher frequencies
(really I know a little about nothing… so all of the above could be bs)
Ach, soon you’ll need a licence to breathe ( only 20,000 per month 
Well, just by coincidence, OFCOM today published the proposed changes to the amateur radio license, and we radio anoraks have been granted the use of transmitting equipment on airborne platforms. I was hoping it would be somewhat more than what they have granted though. I was hoping for something that would bring us in line with our American counterparts, but I suppose it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
For those not familiar with the term EIRP, this stands for Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power. In layman’s terms this is not the output of the transmitter but the energy that would be radiated from a theoretical antenna that has no gain. For reference a simple dipole has 2.15dB of gain over an isotropic radiator, and as most RC systems use dipoles the reality is we are limited to transmitters with around 300milliwatts of power.
Power levels and airborne use
• Foundation licensees will be able to transmit at 25 Watts PEP and Intermediate licensees
at 100 Watts PEP, in bands where the Full licence currently permits operation at 400
Watts PEP. Full licensees will be able to transmit at 1000 Watts PEP in bands where
amateur radio has a primary allocation.
• All licensees will be able to transmit airborne in primary amateur radio bands. There is a
maximum power limit of 500mW EIRP.
Great research. 