A non-member friend of mine, and fellow ham, lives right down the street from a local chapel and reports the following:
Where should I start?The harmful interference is taking place on the 2m Amateur Radio Band, unfortunately in the low end or weak-signal portion of the band. That is the portion of the band reserved under the ARRL Band Plan for listening and working weak stations, meaning either far off (DX) stations or closer stations running low power. Worse, the transmitted interference is FM mode, but is received in the Single Side Band portion of the 2m meter band, meaning that there are heterodynes and the interference extends over a relatively wide range of frequencies (relative to narrow-band SSB operation) in the vicinity of 144.200 to 144.214 Mhz. Finally, since the transmission is FM mode the carrier is continuous, meaning that the interference is constant even if people aren’t speaking or music isn’t playing.
At the amateur radio end of things, the interference makes hearing and working amateur stations impossible in the vicinity of the interference. The timing is very unfortunate since most interference has been observed on Sundays, and it happens that Sunday mornings are when hams attempt to make long distance contact in this portion of the band. And also because the interference falls next to the National Calling frequency of 144.200 that is used to make these weak signal contacts. In simplest terms, the interference destroys the ability to participate.
At the transmitting end, this situation would be thought to be equally unwelcome since live voice transmissions can be plainly heard ‘outside the walls’ by third parties, and the content could be considered by those speaking to be of a private or sensitive nature. Note that reception is possible by anyone with a publicly available radio scanner, and not just by Amateur Radio Operators.
My hunch is that there is a wireless mic that uses a frequency somewhere around 72.103 MHz and that harmonics are not properly being suppressed, resulting in the out-of-band interference. Although this is a violation of FCC regulations, my primary interest is not so much to point fingers as it is to arrive at an effective and speedy resolution.