FCC considers crackdown on bad wireless receivers (opens in new tab)

The fact that this is an issue is scary. A notch filter isn't particularly expensive, doesn't have a large effect on the received strength, and is basic good design on any RF component that needs to isolate a signal in a specific band, so this was simply for profit motives.

For those who are not terribly familiar with radio frequencies this is analogous to using Security By Obscurity. The designer just decided to gamble that nothing would happen to transmit in a band that the system would catch in a pattern that the receiver would interpret as a valid signal.

This might initially sound bad but my understanding is that they already do this for "part 15" devices. I assumed they did it for everyone and am a little surprised that, of all things, they weren't doing it for something critical like a flight altimeter. They'll likely be checking that the device continue to function as intended if exposed to radiation outside its band. They're probably not going to block your baofangs or scanners or HF receivers.

See also: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/35189/fcc-pa...

The FCC may have been the biggest barrier to human progress this century.