Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!zion.Berkeley.EDU!max From: max@zion.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: sci.electronics,rec.humor Subject: Re: Jamming walkmans Message-ID: <21952@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 18:01:07 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.21952 Posted: Wed Nov 25 18:01:07 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 05:08:35 EST References: <4149@utai.UUCP> <1160@uhccux.UUCP> <3810@bellcore.bellcore.com> <2266@kitty.UUCP> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: max@trinity (Max Hauser) Organization: U.C. Berkeley Lines: 66 Xref: utgpu sci.electronics:1584 rec.humor:7813 Summary: The family FM jammer This does not equal Larry's anecdote but it does give you a true example of the effective deployment of electronic countermeasures by civilians against obnoxious FM radio reception. I have a friend, whom I will call Joe, who a few years ago was a quiet electronics technician of the old school. Although too young to properly qualify as an old fart, he liked to build things with vacuum tubes. Joe is also a cellist, and a member of a large local family. He likes to practice his cello, or play the organ, for relaxation. Anyway, at the time of this anecdote, Joe had moved into an apartment in Oakland, California. He did not play the cello or organ there, out of respect for his neighbors (nowadays he owns a house, and besides, his neighbors like the music). However, in the apartment building were some Very Noisy People. They would play FM stations at all hours, loud. They acknowledged but did not act on requests to moderate the volume. Now hereabouts this sort of behavior is illegal -- the police call it a 647 violation, Disturbing The Peace, so Joe could easily have complained to the police. But his style was much quieter, and subtler, than that. He built an FM jammer, which came in later years to be passed around a lot and dubbed "the family FM jammer." (This was very much in character -- Joe was always building clever gadgets to fill a need. The family is very handy with things like that, making do -- Joe's parents grew up, of course, in the Depression.) It was a beautiful piece of work: built on a block of wood, with open-air coils, a large glowing VHF tube, and porcelain insulators. It would have been completely at home in a 1930's sci-fi movie with Bela Lugosi in a starched white smock that buttoned up on one side. The jammer used, simply enough, the 60-Hertz power line to frequency-modulate the carrier. With characteristic attention to detail, Joe had made sure that the modulation was just enough to cover the desired channel without spilling over to adjacent ones. Yes, it was assembled and aligned with all the loving care of a commercial transmitter expecting outside inspection. The procedure was simple but delightful. When the Noisy Neighbors decided to play loud FM, and this got to bothering Joe, he would warm up the jammer. Because the jammer needed precise tuning, and also because the problem had now become a sport, Joe worked the tuning dial with the fingers of a safecracker, and all the patience in the world -- I like to think, though I don't really know, that he had a cigar and a glass of port, perhaps Graham's Malvedos 1955. Presently a horrific buzz would replace the (inevitably pounding) dance beat audible through the wall, provoking vaguely audible expletives of discontent. Someone would change the station, and the music would return. It didn't bother Joe; he was patient, and he was sure of his quarry. Eventually he would find the new station and they would change it again. Sooner or later there were expletives of resignation and the receiver was turned off. To his fortune, they rarely played anything but FM (AM, of course, would have been even more manageable, but records would have required a radically different approach). All of this had the effect of translating a nuisance into good clean sport, at least for a patient cellist like Joe. Naturally, as a law-abiding citizen, not to mention a commercial licensiate of the FCC and bound by the statutes of the Communications Act of 1934 as amended, I would have been horrified and obliged to report this behavior had I not learned of it well after the fact.