Subscriber Discussion

Do You Check Your Equipment For FCC Compliance?

CP
Carlton Purvis
Dec 20, 2013

Earlier this year a website, Security-Cameras-cctv.com, was issued a citation from the FCC for violation the Communications Act because wireless transmitters it was selling that weren't FCC compliant.

Here's what happened:

The FAA filed an FCC complaint because it was experiencing interference with one of its doppler weather radars in Las Vegas. The FCC investigated and traced the interference back to a storage facility 20 miles away in Henderson, Nevada. Investigators found a "5.8 GHz wireless video transmitter and observed that it contained neither an FCC identification number nor the name of a manufacturer."

They contacted the installer who said he bought it from Security-Cameras-cctv.com and provided them the invoice.

The FCC sent a citation to the online store telling them they couldn't sell the transmitters anymore. They had 30 days to respond. That was in January. The model named in the citation is no longer for sale online. The storage facility said they've since switched to an analog system.

When you're selling, receiving, buying equipment, especially wireless equipment, are you looking to make sure this stuff is FCC compliant? Should the installer have caught that?

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Derek Ward
Dec 20, 2013
Hanwha

Hey Carlton, nice post! I'm curious, even if the 5.8 GHz wireless video transmitter did contain a FCC identification number and manufacturer name, would the FCC had the system taken down due to the interference anyway?

CP
Carlton Purvis
Dec 20, 2013

Good question. If they had an FCC number and manufacturer name they probably would have still been taken down for interference. BUT if they had an FCC number, then they shouldn't be having interference. There is a certification process things have to pass.

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Ethan Ace
Dec 20, 2013

There are circumstances under which even certified equipment will end up interfering. I know of a school district which had its internal cable TV distribution shut off because it was so poorly installed it was leaking RF everywhere. Bad connectors and cables on higher-powered wireless gear could also do this.

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Robert Tabbara
Dec 21, 2013

We had a similar experiance with UBNT radios at a project. We got called by Verzion and it was determinted that that the UBNT radio went bad and caused interfernce.

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