Schoolboy's bedroom raided after TV aerial interferes with air traffic control

[snopes]

A schoolboy, Nickie Chamberlain, was surprised when Government officials arrived at his bedroom and confiscated his television aerial because it was interfering with planes landing at a nearby airport.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...c-control.html

[htonl]

"Schoolboy's bedroom raided" and "Government officials arrived at his bedroom and confiscated his television aerial" is rather an exaggerated way to describe an Ofcom engineer coming to his house and telling his father to throw away the antenna because it was faulty.

I suppose it's the best they could do without a political-correctness-gone-mad angle.

[Banrion]

Silly question to a silly story. Why wouldn't the official take the faulty antenna with him and make sure it is in fact disposed of? Maybe it is just me, but I could see someone attempting to use such a device for illicit purposes once they knew of the issue with it.

[bjohn13]

Originally Posted by Banrion

Silly question to a silly story. Why wouldn't the official take the faulty antenna with him and make sure it is in fact disposed of? Maybe it is just me, but I could see someone attempting to use such a device for illicit purposes once they knew of the issue with it.

I don't think that the government oficial, in the USA at least, could legally take the equipment without some kind of compensation. They could be fined for continuing to use it, though.

Also, believe it or not, this kind of thing is not all that uncommon. In America, cable television companies, for instance, are monitored by the FCC to make sure that none of the signal that they broadcast leaks into the air. They use the same frequencies as airplanes as well as emergency vechicles. A major signal leak could potentiall be disasterous.

[Andrew of Ware]

This was on my local BBC news a couple of days ago.

Here's the BBC Beds, Bucks and Herts report (with a very short video interview with the boy and father).

The word 'raided' in the Telegraph report sounds a bit dramatic as the BBC television report said that the engineers asked to look round the house. The father and son were fully co-operative and when they found the aerial was causing a problem they agreed to stop using it.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by bjohn13

...In America, cable television companies, for instance, are monitored by the FCC to make sure that none of the signal that they broadcast leaks into the air. They use the same frequencies as airplanes as well as emergency vechicles. A major signal leak could potentiall be disasterous.

I worked for Comcast Cable a few years back. They had a pick up truck that was fitted with equipment to detect signal leaks, and it had to be driven through every street in our service area, I think it was once or twice a year. I got to drive it for a few days once when I sprained my left ankle and wasn't good for much else. It was a nice break, I got a map of the areas that hadn't been checked yet and just drove around for my whole shift, marking off each street as I drove it. A report was generated and any leaks were assigned to be fixed by technicians.