FCC Rules on RFI issues
(FCC Preemption of Restrictive Antenna Ordinances and RFI)
Only the FCC has jurisdiction over interference! Municipal zoning authorities, including local law enforcement officials, do not have that authority.
As with restrictive antenna ordinances, the FCC, through a directive from Congress, has preempted any concurrent state or local regulation of RFI pursuant to the provisions of §302(a) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended. The legal cite is: 47 USC §302(a) and it provides that the:
Commission may, consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity, make reasonable regulations (1) governing the interference potential of devices which in their operation are capable of emitting radio frequency energy by radiation, conduction, or other means in sufficient degree to cause harmful interference to radio communications; and (2) establishing minimum performance standards for home electronic equipment and systems to reduce their susceptibility to interference from radio frequency energy. Such regulations shall be applicable to the manufacture, import, sale, offer for sale, or shipment of such devices and home electronic equipment and systems, and to the use of such devices.
The legislative history of §302(a) provides explicitly that the Commission has exclusive authority to regulate radio frequency interference (RFI). In its Conference Report No. 97-765, Congress declared:
The Conference Substitute is further intended to clarify the reservation of exclusive jurisdiction to the Federal Communications Commission over matters involving RFI. Such matters shall not be regulated by local or state law, nor shall radio transmitting be subject to local or state regulation as part of any effort to resolve an RFI complaint.
The legal cite for this report is: H.R. Report No. 765, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 33 (1982), reprinted at 1982 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad News 2277.
State laws and local ordinances that require amateurs to cease operations or incur penalties as a consequence of radio interference thus have been entirely preempted by Congress. This was written by then-FCC General Counsel Robert L. Pettit in a letter dated February 14, 1990 to ARRL General Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD.
In many cases, neighbors who are concerned about amateur tower installations may focus on possible RFI problems as part of their concerns. Local zoning bodies sometimes try and overstep their legal bounds when it comes to zoning and it can cause headaches for amateurs. Local governments must reasonably accommodate amateur operations in zoning decisions as documented by the partial preemption called PRB-1. The legal cite for PRB-1 is: 101 FCC 2d 952 (1985). § 97.15 provides that an amateur station antenna structure may be erected at heights and dimensions sufficient to accommodate effective amateur service communications.
Local governments may not, however, base their regulation of amateur service antenna structures on the causation of interference to home electronic equipment--an area regulated exclusively by the Commission. We'll discuss this in detail in the next section. A good statement of FCC preemption of RFI appears in the Memorandum Opinion and Order in WT Docket 02-100. Though not an amateur case, it is very helpful as an FCC statement of policy with respect to RFI.
How does this affect RFI? Some local governments mistakenly believe that if an amateur antenna is lowered, the potential for interference decreases. The FCC has gone on record as stating that there is no reasonable connection between requiring an amateur to reduce the height of his tower and reducing the amount of interference to his neighbor's home electronic equipment. On the contrary, antenna height is inversely related to the strength of the radio signal that serves as a catalyst for interference in susceptible home electronic equipment. The higher that antenna is, the farther away is it from consumer equipment, and the less the interference potential is. It is a matter of technical fact that the higher an amateur antenna, the less likely it is that RFI will appear in home electronic equipment. This statement was made in an October 25, 1994 letter from former FCC Private Radio Bureau Chief Ralph Haller. It has been reprinted in The FCC Rule Book, published by ARRL