Interference and enforcement

What to do about a jammer, and what the FCC actually does.

Harmful interference

Part 97 requires you not to cause harmful interference and to take steps to resolve it when you do. Two stations both operating legally on a shared band must work it out between themselves — no one "owns" a frequency, including net and repeater users, although band plans and long-established nets carry real moral weight.

Dealing with deliberate interference

  1. Do not respond. Acknowledgement is the reward the jammer is seeking, and it is the single
  2. most effective thing you control.

  3. Keep operating normally. Log the times, frequencies and content.
  4. Record it if you can, along with directional bearings if you have a beam or a direction-finding
  5. setup.

  6. Report persistent cases through the ARRL Volunteer Monitor programme and, for serious cases, to
  7. the FCC Enforcement Bureau.

Direction finding

Coordinated "fox hunts" are a club sport and a genuinely useful skill; groups that hunt for fun on Saturdays are the ones who locate a real interference source in an afternoon.

Interference to and from consumer equipment

See RFI and noise. Most complaints from neighbours involve poor immunity in their equipment rather than a fault in your station, but courtesy and a box of ferrites resolve far more cases than citing the rules ever has.

Last updated Aug 27, 2026. Page history · Sign in to edit