Oh wow I literally know this guy. Jason Frawley. He's a big part of a very vocal group of rural, deep red state WISP operators who think they're god's own gift to network engineering, and mostly worship at the altar of one specific political figure. Watching their antics has been an endless source of amusement.
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen Jason and his cohort shoot themselves in the foot with some ill-advised network architecture, rf engineering or network engineering design choice...
That he's out there interfering with licensed bands and emergency services is totally unsurprising. That's only the tip of an iceberg of weirdness.
There are very, very few FCC enforcement bureau staff members in WA, ID, OR. You have to do something really egregious to get on their radar screen. Every time the FCC fines someone $10k+ it goes in their public daily digest emails as a "notice of apparent liability" and is quite a rare event in the Pacific Northwest. It is not at all as if the FCC has vans full of guys with spectrum analyzers and such driving around the area trying to hunt down and fine people for petty reasons. To get fined by them you really have to go far outside the accepted norms for two way radio or wisp operations in the area.
He has network equipment and repeaters at the mentioned elk butte site and probably thought he was doing something to protect his gear.
His FCC licensed part 101 fdd band plan ptp microwave links are all part of the public record as part of the FCC ULS public data for the curious.
This is an ARRL news article. Those speculating that the FCC is unfair, didn’t know if The firefighters had a problem with it, are not being transparent, etc can just click through and read for themselves the actual FCC notice, which is a public record. I quote its beginning:
> On July 22, 2021, the Commission received a complaint from the U.S. Forest Service alleging that an individual had been transmitting on government radio frequencies 148-174 MHz without authorization, and that the individual was causing radio frequency interference to the U.S. Forest Service firefighter’s fire suppression aircraft in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
At first blush this looks like the government smiting a flea with a sledge hammer. But it sounds more like there's more to this story. The forest service took the time to track him down on their own which says a lot right there - they literally have bigger fires to deal with, but spent the time to track this guy down to deal with him. Sounds like he was being an active nuisance.
> The forest service took the time to track him down on their own which says a lot right there - they literally have bigger fires to deal with, but spent the time to track this guy down to deal with him.
Elk river Idaho is a tiny town surrounded by mountains and wilderness on all four sides, if he was set up with a company banner at the local airfield it was probably very obvious.
The government also took the time (and great expense) to track down J6 attendees who never even entered the capitol, or those who were actually invited in by security, meandered around, and left peaceably.
If the government wants you to be punished, and there's enough spite on the table, guilt or innocence matters little. See: Waco, Ruby Ridge, the FBI urging MLK to kill himself, and countless others that didn't make a lasting splash in the headlines.
It's really hard to say without the the factual evidence and everyone in this thread is speculating.A thousand Acre fire isn't that big, less than two square miles. If he was in the proximity, tracking him down might have looking over their shoulder at the radio tower Tower and telling him to knock it off.
The obvious questions are how disruptive was he and what were his intentions. This information is not present.
8 transmissions over two days could be annoying or nothing. Big difference if he's informing them where a trapped family is or is bullshiting wasting airtime
> A thousand Acre fire isn't that big, less than two square miles.
That could have spread to a thousand times the size, resulting in a massive loss of life and assets.
> The obvious questions are how disruptive was he and what were his intentions.
That’s not to point. He clearly knew he shouldn’t do it, and knew (or refused to accept) the reasons why.
The fact is, this kind of behaviour needs to be addressed to avoid interference during a more catastrophic incident in the future. Given the pattern of wild fires in the past few years, is almost certainly a ‘not if but when’ event.
I think this has to be seen in the larger context. The broadcaster was trying to be helpful, but broke the rules. No conclusión presented if he was actually helpful.
But aside from intent, if the government didn’t enforce this strictly, it would open up the opportunity for all number of ‘helpful’ folks to chime up in the future, which could have a slippery slope. They don’t want to be in the business of carving out a ‘helpful’ exception and then have to draw the line on how helpful is worth it. Seems like a recipe for inconsistent enforcement.
Plain and simple, he broadcasted on frequencies he was not authorized to broadcast on. Easy to enforce as no ARRL member is allowed to talk on those frequencies.
I would think that if there is an emergency in a very rural area, it happens often that people contact the fire dept. / authorities via their radio frequencies, even if it is strictly speaking not legal. I read something the other day where they were looking for a crashed plane, and somebody radioed them with details.
There's no need for speculation -- the individual in question is not only a licensed amateur radio operator, but holds additional licenses for commercial microwave links. They are well aware of the rules, and chose to violate them, repeatedly, after being instructed not to by the very emergency response personnel they were purportedly trying to help (in fact, they were trying to manipulate the emergency response to save some of their own equipment).
It's baffling to me how many people here are defending them. This is about as clear-cut as it gets.
The definition of emergency in this context is pretty close to "someone's gonna die if I don't make this transmission". He knows this. Every amateur radio operator knows this. He didn't make a mistake.
Which is absolutely fine, but there are (or should be, I'm not a radio guy) channels they can do that on / with that do not interfere with the people on the ground needing to coordinate.
> I would be interested in hearing the opinion of the local crews, if he actually was helpful.
Absolutely not.
He identified himself as "comm tech" in his transmission. At that point the person managing traffic logs in the Communications Unit checks their sheet provided by the Operations Section and sees no "comm tech" assigned to the incident. This gets reported up to the Logistics Section Officer and then escalated to the Incident Commander.
Every asset in the field is checked out, logged, and checked back in for safety reasons. You now have to divert resources to a search and rescue mission for your missing "comm tech" and the entire command post is going back rechecking EVERYTHING.
One of the things that happened post 9/11 was all emergency response was standardized on the national ICS system (which I included in an edit to my original post), so a police officer or a firefighter from Kansas can work an incident in New Mexico if they need to because all the procedures are the same. Being certified in ICS my response to you is the same you'd get from the IC of the fire.
Nothing about this clown show was helpful, because you have now created an incident within an incident that diverts the most critical assets (command and control) from what they should be doing to direct the attack on the fire.
The correct way to communicate this information is to call 911. Operators are highly trained in collecting the right information and getting it out to the right people quickly.
Or hell even just saying "break break, I am a civilian with life saving information" and waiting would have been acceptable in an emergency. The comms manager would have directed him to change to a backup frequency and taken the information. Instead he tried to "fit in" and play cool guy.
As a holder of multiple FCC licenses, he is obligated by law to know this stuff, which is why I am being overly hard on him.
During his transmissions he was blocking any other transmission on that frequency, maybe an important message couldn’t be sent due to his „help“. Those frequencies are for emergency personnel only and it can‘t be used as a public tip line.
Imagine there would be more of his kind on those frequencies, all of them „helping“. Each one thinking that their help is essential, but none of them actually being in emergency response teams, just sitting in their lawn chairs giving helpful advise.
Just reading the other comments here and you can easily see the quotes others have provided from the relevant emergency people who told this guy to stop, in person, from interfering.
I mean if it was helpful, it would count in his favor and might reduce the fine, but he still broke the FCC rules for his licenses which is unacceptable. Wasn't there another channel he could communicate on outside of the reserved frequencies?
> on July 17th and 18th, firefighter personnel working on the “Johnson” fire [...] began receiving unauthorized radio transmissions from an individual identifying as “comm tech.” This individual interrupted fire suppression activities and began advising the firefighters and aircraft personnel of hazards at a radio repeater site located at Elk Butte. [...] This individual, subsequently identified as Frawley, admitted to transmitting on government frequencies and doing so as a “comm tech.” The fire operations section chief instructed Frawley to cease operations on the frequency and returned to his post.
so it doesn't sound like they were very happy with his "help".
The PPF mentioned that the Fire Operations Section Chief for the wildfire drove out to where Fawley (the transmitter) was operating from and specifically told him to stop, as he had been repeatedly transmitting over two days.
I think the big part was that it was on the same frequency that the ground crews and fire fighting aircraft were using to coordinate with each other.
People who flaunt protocols to offer unsolicited “help” are usually the type who are annoyingly full of themselves, who are more likely to just drain limited resources or worse, make a mess of things. Don’t be that guy.
I would prefer the FCC be more transparent about what he transmitted and use that to justify the fine.
34k is a powerful enough deterrent that it could cost a life. What if a neighbor runs over and says someone is seriously injured a half mile down the road and the phone+cell towers are out. Do you risk the $34k and transmit? What if it's a stranger instead of a neighbor?
I have a ham radio license at ARRL. If your equipment can transmit at specific emergency service frequencies, 99.999% of the time you can also transmit on the wide band of ham frequencies, and there will be people on those frequencies ready to make phone calls to whatever services you need, if you can’t do so yourself. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
This dude transmitted eight fucking times and someone had to drive there to stop him.
That’s a pretty ridiculous scenario - there are plenty of emergency frequencies he could have used. He used active ones being used in an emergency because he wanted the attention and to feel important, not because it was actually helpful or necessary to save any lives.
Which is why he got fined so heavily. If it was a real life and death emergency, that isn’t what happens.
Everyone with a license to operate some kind of maritime, aviation or other radio also knows which frequencies are designated for emergencies. Those frequencies are monitored 24x7 all over the world by for example the coast guard, ATC and nearly every airplane in cruise flight (and I guess also ships, not sure how it works there).
Jumping in on a non-open frequency that is used for firefighting coordination, with a callsign that is specifically chosen to sound as "part of the team", it just a stupid stunt that deserves to be prosecuted.
> I would prefer the FCC be more transparent about what he transmitted and use that to justify the fine.
If you're really curious, go and do the research then - if it's not public record, you can file a Freedom of Information request.
But why do you care so much?
In your hypothetical scenario, you can transmit just fine - just use the proper emergency / SOS channels, not the ones reserved for e.g. the fire department, you're more likely to get help then. I don't see why so many people seem to struggle with this basic concept.
I have a feeling, even if the information was helpful, the net result was not. Having someone else on the radio net providing information of unknown provenance directly to firefighters screws up command and makes everyone nervous. It's a big distraction at a time no one needs it.
Imagine at your job there is a crisis. Everyone is overworked, on edge, every minute counts. Then a random person appears and starts giving you and your co-workers 'information'. Whoever they are, GTFO! And probably your crisis isn't life and death.
I don’t get why people are so defensive of a guy who breaks rules using equipment he has a license for. Will people protest fines for Flying airplanes in restricted airspace’s? Protest fines for driving cars on in areas that are clearly prohibited? Radio equipment of that sort requires a license and that means one is responsible for being knowledgeable of regulations and respect the regulations.
It is, unfortunately, the new libertarian ... "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose" has become "I can swing my fist where ever I bloody well choose and you had better move your goddamn nose if you don't want it broke"
Yup. I've been learning about James M. Buchanan, the Virginia School's "political economy", and their particular notions of "liberty".
What they really advocate is freedom from consequences. Maximal individualism at the expense of the common good.
As a Gen-X, my early exposure to right-libertarian notions was thru Robert Heinlein, Ayn Rand, etc. So edgy, so attractive. Sign me up! I so wish young me had known about Buchanan, John Birch Society, etc. Would have saved myself a lot of time.
RACES/ARES exists as a sanctioned interface between amateur radio and public safety. It’s perplexing that he felt he couldn’t disseminate his information that way. Being an extra class, he definitely knew about it.
That’s an important distinction here. He’s getting roasted not just because he interfered, but because he interfered even though he knew very well he was not supposed to.
There is an exception under part 97 (covering amateur radio licensees) for emergency communications. I suppose this will depend on the contents of his transmissions and if they were truly necessary and justified and if "normal communication systems" were not available.
> § 97.403 Safety of life and protection of property.
> No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radiocommunication at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available.
I think the article makes it pretty clear he wasn't in any danger, and that wasn't the point of his transmissions. He just has a big head and thought the rules shouldn't apply to him.
I'm certain that if he was in danger, and called May Day on the wrong frequency, they'd be no issue. More than likely they'd be a local news article reminding people how important radio communications are for remote locations.
I do not believe that Part 97 is applicable in this case. Part 97 covers the use of the allocated amateur radio spectrum, but this guy was transmitting on the public service band and not the amateur radio band.
There’s a similar law on the books in the FAR for pilots:
(b) In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this part to the extent required to meet that emergency.
(c) Each pilot in command who deviates from a rule under paragraph (b) of this section shall, upon the request of the Administrator, send a written report of that deviation to the Administrator.
But you can’t just declare emergency and do whatever you want (people have been caught abusing this to get priority on landings, etc).
Carveouts like that are for… well actual needs not people who are really interested in being helpful despite the lack of need. Some guy with a radio went beyond this despite being told to stop.
> when normal communication systems are not available.
I think that would be the key point to the exemption. He likely could have contacted the fire service by telephone or other "normal communication systems".
There's a lot of people trying to play lawyer for this guy, I don't really understand why.
Yes there is an exception, but did you stop and think whether it applied in this case? If he wanted to be helpful, there are a billion other frequencies (I don't even know) he could've done so without broadcasting on the reserved frequencies.
Sad to see a licensee not following the rules. The tradition of amateur radio is very much one of playing by the rules in one of the purest forms of shared commons there is (outside of an actual common).
Just a thought experiment (not defending him or anything):
If he (albeit illegally) provided extremely useful information to the firefighters that prevented a bigger spread and possible saved lives, would FCC still fine it?
e.g. Jumping in the plane's communication frequency and telling them the coordinates where a fire they haven't realized, say, is moving very close to a oil refinary. (Just made it up but you get the idea)
Well yeah, there are always exceptions and this isn't an automatic ruling. But it does not apply here, and you can read the details to see why not.
As for your hypothetical scenario, why would they hijack the plane's communications channel, instead of contact the central fire fighting authorities through the proper channels?
If you don't know what the proper channels are, you shouldn't have a license. This is another reason the guy was fined; it wasn't a random that happened to find a radio set to the reserved frequency (or however these things work), it was a licensed radio operator, they get trained and tested. And he repeated offenses, despite being told to stop / get off the channel.
If you want to talk to a plane about an emergency, you would use the designated emergency frequency. A trained radio operator is supposed to know that frequency.
I once filed an FCC complaint about a broad frequency disruption to broadcast radio in one location. As you drove down the street everything went from fine to static and then fine again. I suspect it was merely a bad transformer on a power pole, arcing or something. Anyway, nothing was ever done and it went on for years.
In the absence of infinite resources an enforcement division of a regulatory agency has to prioritize. It is unfortunate that it went unchecked for that long though.
Nice snark, but... you can fine utilities who don't promptly fix a problem way more than $34k, though.
The problem is, someone would actually have to figure out who's fault it is and who to contact about the problem. Getting the FCC to roll one a very limited number of vans to figure it out is hard. (You'd have been better off writing one of the utilities on the pole and copying the FCC, because they generally take their obligations seriously to avoid RFI to avoid fines, and would tend to figure it out even if it's someone else's problem).
In the case of this dude-- no need to figure it out. It was annoying enough to the Forest Service that they had to find him and tell him in person to stop.
It’s good to know that broken equipment can pollute the airwaves for years unchecked, and even if the broken equipment was found and the responsible party identified, they would still be given opportunity the rectify the situation even though they have been in violation for potentially years. But a guy with a bad judgment call in a natural disaster can get a $34k fine immediately, and the agency will brag about how it is the largest ever.
> they would still be given opportunity the rectify the situation
He was asked on air to stop transmitting, and kept going... necessitating personnel having to take a break from incident command to go out and drive and tell him to stop.
Subsequently, there were further unauthorized transmissions, but this guy denies making those.
He was licensed, had a commercial business operating equipment, and interfered multiple times during a public emergency. The intent might have been good, but this is a "fuck around and find out" fine to discourage other people who should also know better from trying similar things in the future.
I thought it was outrageous at first. Dude was just trying to help.
I guess the question is just how disruptive was he?
I’ve got incident response training so I understand the worry about having randos in the mix. But this seems a bit extreme.
Or cops, who seem to live above the law. I mean they literally do because they have the monopoly on violence - in theory - but they cross boundaries on a regular occurrence.
Tangential, but are fines from FCC, SEC, etc a violation of the “innocent until proven guilty” principle?
When a single org has the power to target a citizen, name the crime, pass a guilty verdict, and enforce a penalty, then what keeps them from becoming just a political a tool for the people in the driver’s seat?
No? They did an investigation, found that he was guilty of broadcasting on channels he was not allowed to (see the documents, witness statements, recordings etc), and was fined accordingly.
The FCC is a government organization with the authority to fine people for violations of the rules and laws. And of course, as civilian or person-getting-fined-by-the-fcc, you have the right to fight these rulings, in court if needs be, if you do not believe the fine was justified. That's how the system works; I'm not sure what else you want.
> Tangential, but are fines from FCC, SEC, etc a violation of the “innocent until proven guilty” principle?
I believe that you can take these kinds of things to trial in federal court, if you so wish (I'm pretty sure companies take stuff from the SEC to court all the time).
However, for the FCC to actually smack you down, you generally have done something egregiously stupid and they explicitly told you to stop and you ignored them and they have you dead to rights.
So, you can take it to court. Your probability of winning is just realy, really, really low.
I hope he can afford some good lawyers. It’s likely there is no evidence of any actual harm being done, just the potential for harm. $34k seems unnecessarily punitive in this case.
This is actually tiny compared to their statutory authority of forfeiture, which is $22,001 per transmission. Instead:
> of a $10,000 forfeiture for each of the two days of apparent unlicensed operations30 and a $7,000 forfeiture for each of the two days of harmful interference),31 for which Frawley is apparently liable. We caution Frawley that future violations of this kind may result in significantly higher forfeitures or revocation of his amateur license.
He's free lawyer up, but the first round of litigation is before an administrative law judge and all that's required is the preponderance of the evidence, as they are not seeking a criminal conviction.
Sure, a piece of paper says they could penalize him much more. It doesn’t change the fact that they are trying to take an amount of money that could well be 25% or even 50% of his yearly income. It’s excessive in my eyes.
This kind of thing is why people are so reflexively against federal regulation of anything. You pressed talk on your radio during a disaster, give us half your income. Oh, you caught the wrong kind of lobster, just go ahead and declare bankruptcy.
> You pressed talk on your radio during a disaster
If you read TFA, you'd know that's not at all what happened. He is a licensed amateur radio operator and knew the rules, and kept breaking them during a critical firefighting operation even after being told to stop, multiple times.
This was no accident or harmless mistake. I think the fine is justified.
I did read it. It doesn’t provide any significant detail of his alleged transgressions OR whether they were responsible for any damages. I’m inclined to believe that were there any hard evidence of a negative outcome it would be described in great detail.
There WAS a negative outcome; reserved communications channels were disrupted, and people had to take time to go to the sender directly to tell him to stop (after two days of disruptions and being told on the radio to stop as well). That's the damage, that's the negative outcome, and it has been described in great detail. What more do you want?
Yup. 34k sounds like a power trip from someone to me. Since I can't reply to them, I'll just say it directly here, the linked document from the FCC just keeps repeating the same things over and over again, but contains no interesting new information compared to the original article.
This kind of thing is why people see federal regulation as important and necessary. We all know how dangerous and time sensitive fighting wild fires can be and a civilian inserting themselves into the communication channels used to coordinate field operations is totally unacceptable.
There a sizable number of libertarians/ancaps/minarchists on HN so I understand opposition to regulatory agencies in a general sense. What I do not understand is why anyone is carrying water for this guy. Sure he’s behaving irresponsibly but he’s also an ass engaging in willfully terrible behavior. It’s shameful and embarrassing.
It's called legislation, and it's there for a reason.
Likewise, some text on a website says you and your comments can be removed from this site if they break the rules; you agreed to said rules when you created an account. I mean I'm sure you can start a discussion about some of the finer points if you bring up good points, but in the end, you agreed to create your account and use the service under those conditions.
Likewise, this person decided to get a license for radio transmissions, accepting the consequences for misuse. If he didn't want to be at risk of those consequences, he shouldn't have a radio.
I'm seeing a lot of libertarians / anarchists in this comments thread, who seem to fail to grasp the basics of a functioning society. If there were no deterrents, rules, "pieces of paper", etc, it would be anarchy and the radio would be unusable.
In other links on this thread from FCC documents it is clarified he was told to stop, both on the radio and in person.
Not that it actually matters; he was licensed, he knew the rules and laws, and any warnings given were a courtesy. He's a full adult, he doesn't need a thread of commenters (not you specifically) to defend him or his actions.
Does it matter if harm was done? He broadcasted on a reserved frequency; that is illegal. He proceeded to broadcast on a reserved frequency despite being told to stop; that makes it not accidental. And he is a licensed operator, so he knew what he was doing, which makes it on purpose.
There's a lot of people jumping to this guy's defense, or reinterpreting the law, or what-iffing hypothetical scenarios in this comments thread and I don't understand it.
Let the guy take the L, he broke the law and has to face consequences, it's that simple.
edit: I see another commenter in this thread pointing out he got off lightly, too.
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen Jason and his cohort shoot themselves in the foot with some ill-advised network architecture, rf engineering or network engineering design choice...
That he's out there interfering with licensed bands and emergency services is totally unsurprising. That's only the tip of an iceberg of weirdness.
There are very, very few FCC enforcement bureau staff members in WA, ID, OR. You have to do something really egregious to get on their radar screen. Every time the FCC fines someone $10k+ it goes in their public daily digest emails as a "notice of apparent liability" and is quite a rare event in the Pacific Northwest. It is not at all as if the FCC has vans full of guys with spectrum analyzers and such driving around the area trying to hunt down and fine people for petty reasons. To get fined by them you really have to go far outside the accepted norms for two way radio or wisp operations in the area.
He has network equipment and repeaters at the mentioned elk butte site and probably thought he was doing something to protect his gear.
His FCC licensed part 101 fdd band plan ptp microwave links are all part of the public record as part of the FCC ULS public data for the curious.