re power signal surges in home in article drand apr spinner osf org drand spinner osf org douglas s rand writes in article randall woof randall informix com randall rhea writes hams can legally run up to watts it is very unlikely however that a ham would be running that kind of power from a car ham rigs not possible either you d need about a amp alternator for just the amplifier i can just see it you need to slow down on a downgrade so you hit the push to talk button now that indeed is possible a good friend of mine is running about kw pep from his car yes he does have a second alternator yes he calls the rig an electronic brake since the engine noticeably slows when the key is down my car unfortunately has so much computer junk under the hood that it s astonishingly sensitive to rfi if i key a w ht over the engine with the hood open the car loses timing due to the rf leaking into the distributor pickup very poor design i will however point out that ham radio operators are usually quite willing to help when interference is detected remember that any interference is wasted power if i put out w in the tv band that s w that i am not putting out in the band i am trying to transmit on and w can often be the difference between a nice card hanging on the wall and nothing cbers however are usually not as helpful most illegal cbers however will stop operation when you inform them of a problem the rest of them will stop operation when you inform the local fcc office of the problem in writing and giving details and addresses last you can usually tell ham radio vs cb ham operators are required to declare their call sign every so many minutes no more than so if you hear this is wa qt or some other call starting with a w or k and no more than total characters you heard a ham cb ers probably won t sign i don t know that they re even required to and fire police have other private ids good advice hams will frequently give their call and will never use a handle they are less apt to use immense amounts of profanity as well but that s not to say that they don t from time to time scott
