Useful RFI

I apologize for being even more grumpy than normal but I haven’t had much sleep. Olga and I were woken up at around 1 in the morning by a lot of noise outside. It was a group of young people who had apparently been having a party in the house opposite. Despite the fact that the temperature was heading for -7C and the girls, according to Olga who was looking out of the window, were none too warmly clad, they were not simply saying goodbye but continuing an animated conversation. Someone decided the party must be carrying on outside so they switched on a car’s headlamps and turned on the stereo very loud. Because of the way the houses are crammed together here with virtually no front gardens this was taking place right below our bedroom window. After ten minutes we were both getting very angry. It isn’t often that Olga uses the f word about people.

I felt like calling the police, but the chances of them actually making an appearance before the miscreants had slept off their hangovers was pretty remote so we discarded that idea. Olga went downstairs and turned on the lights to try and make it obvious that we had been disturbed. I went into the shack, switched on the K2 and sent a 10W dit on 30m, which switched on the security lights of the nearby neighbours that have them. This did appear to have the effect of making the tiny minds think “gosh, other people live around here and oh my, it’s after 1 in the morning, perhaps they are trying to sleep and our noise has disturbed them!” because shortly afterwards the group dispersed and peace and quiet resumed. But neither of us are good sleepers and it took a while before we calmed down enough to sleep again. Hence the foul mood this morning.

It has sometimes been a bit annoying that I can’t go on any band except 80m after dark because of the problem with security lights. But on this occasion it turned out to be useful. If only I knew that the thoughtless young people had touch sensitive lamps by their bedside I might even have been tempted to try a bit of all-night WSPR!

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

2 Responses to “Useful RFI”

  • N4LNE Phil:

    I feel for you OM. I would love to make it a capital crime here in the USA for anyone to have a sound system in a vehicle that can be heard outside the vehicle. I have a person where I live that you can hear from over a block away. He is in the area for 10 minutes at a time and the police take 40 minutes to respond to real crimes in progress god knows how long it would take for them to get to a noise complaint. I wonder if a properly tuned kilowatt would destroy his system as he goes by.
    Things are looking up.

    Merry Christmas Everyone
    N4LNE

  • KI5BC Rynn:

    I am duly impressed. Many is time I’ve wanted to do something similar. I try to make friendly with the local youth. Works sometimes. Other times, not so much.

    Our local PD is quite quick on the response, and are happy to poke their noses into any situation. A crying baby netted 3 police and one sheriff the other night. Said baby had opened up the front door and was crying in the front yard at 0300 local. I couldn’t raise the mother, so I had no choice really, but to call. I started calling the little one Houdini. He couldn’t reach the locks, but managed to escape nonetheless!!

    73….

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