I once looked at a hybrid that I really liked, but when we did a test drive and my Icom IC-R10 told me that everything below 500 MHz was rendered unusable. That was game over for that particular vehicle. These noise generators affect more than just in-vehicle radio receivers. My amateur radio station lets me know, loud and clear, when one of these vehicles drives down the street. It is long past time that the FCC enforce their Part 15 unintentional radiator rules.

CARA members, licensed amateur ham radio operators, set up working on the air operating stations at community hosted events located in Chesapeake Beach, Huntingtown and Broomes Island. Stations included portable, battery operated, radio equipment designed to support local, regional and world wide communications. CARA members also demonstrated the remote control capabilities of the amateur radio gear located at Calvert County Emergency Operation Centers. The method, known to amateurs as crossband repeat, connects low powered local radios to more powerful and much higher transmitters, increasing the distance signals travel. Sometimes by hundreds of miles. Using the crossband repeat method, radio operators made several contacts throughout the regional area surrounding Calvert County.

A teenaged Florida girl listening to her ham radio probably heard Amelia Earhart's final desperate Mayday call after the legendary pilot crashed onto a tiny island inhabited by gigantic carnivorous crabs in the Pacific Ocean 800 miles from the nearest airport. The 15 year-old wrote down what the woman said; rising tides were flooding her plane. Her navigator was badly hurt. "Send help." That was in 1937. Today, much more is known about physics, and scientists believe a Florida ham radio could easily have captured Earhart's plea from the other side of the Earth. Navy veteran and Charleston Amateur Radio Society president Rick Valentine has forwarded Mayday calls from boats in the Pacific to the Coast Guard -- which takes them dead seriously. When hurricanes approach South Carolina, Valentine heads to Charleston's Emergency Operation Center to help first responders. If cell towers are destroyed, phone lines and satellites knocked out, "a ham radio operator can still report downed power lines, flooded streets" and neighbors needing wellness checks, he told The Post and Courier. In rural areas, after storms or floods, hams can relay messages to distant, worried relatives that locals are safe.

A US plan that could let satellites supply data to laptops and smartphones using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio bands is facing some pushback over concerns about interference. The National Association for Amateur Radio is also raising concerns, telling the FCC, "Amateur radio terrestrial operations would be uniquely impacted by any interference resulting from adoption of the proposals." In addition, Intel and Cisco chimed in, urging the FCC to only seek proposals that won't disrupt access to existing consumer devices and equipment, "and not proposals for new satellite D2D operations to receive preferential treatment over terrestrial unlicensed operations."