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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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If you're fucking around with your radio equipment doing something you shouldn't and end up causing interference on, for example, aircraft frequencies or emergency service radio systems, you could be a contributing factor to an airliner crashing or an ambulance not being dispatched in a timely manner and a patient dying because they didn't get to the hospital in time.
You didn't directly kill anyone, but you set up the circumstances that resulted in someone dying.
Uhhh, no. I can't speak to the ambulance comms, but a plane isn't going to fall out of the sky because they can't hear the radio. Even if they have to fly VFR and make an emergency landing (which would be the worst case). Waaay too many safeguards in place (including the pilot themselves being trained for loss of comms).
The radio in the plane could melt and you'd still be able to communicate with ATC via light guns.
Radios are used for more than just comms like hearing other people talking on the radio. Gps, transponders, radar, and other systems rely on radio waves to operate, and so are potentially (however unlikely) susceptible to interference from other radio equipment.
There's a reason we have so many safeguards built in, sometimes those systems fail, sometimes multiple systems fail at once, and you don't want whatever you have left to go down too.
And yes, it can certainly interfere with ambulance comms, I work in 911 dispatch, we have some redundancy with the MDTs in their vehicles and smartphone apps and such, but those systems have been known to fail on us, leaving us with just radios to communicate with our field units. My agency's systems are a bit more advanced, but I've been to some rural areas where they're using pretty basic VHF/UHF radios that I could listen in and even key up and transmit on with a $30 baofeng (the frequencies they were using were a bit outside of what's legally permitted for ham radio use, but still within the capabilities of my radio)
So when I said "VFR" and "light guns", and you totally ignored it, it proved to me that you're spouting some armchair opinions, and have never flown a plane. Nor did any of the people who downvoted me. Looks like the reddit crowd is in full swing in this thread.
Also, I said I couldn't speak to the ambulance radios. I have no experience with those systems, and said as much. Everything you said about them is beside the point I was making.
You don't need radio comms to fly or land a plane. Could a shitty ham screw up the instruments? Yes. Is that a headache for ATC and pilots? Yes. Will they crash a plane? No.
No, it's not besides the point because you can have issues with poor visibility and those light guns are not immune from breaking down, and then you'd really want your other communication and instruments to be functioning as they should.
Look, I know we're talking one in a million, worst case scenarios here, not situations that are at all likely to happen, just ones that theoretically could if Murphy's law goes into full effect, multiple people at every level drop the ball, and the planets and stars are all aligned just so, etc.
Pilots are also trained for flight with poor visibility (for example, flying above clouds and looking for holes of clear sky to descend through, then looking for safe landing sites), and also landing with poor visibility, for exactly the reasons we've both brought up. I agree that it's more hazardous, but like I said, it's not falling out of the sky because someone pushed the wrong button on their equipment.
And not for nothin'; if someone keeps screwing up with short disruptions, or (even worse) leaves something on that causes consistent communication interference, the hams will find them, and the feds will start knocking on the door pretty quick.