Had to shorten the subject line because of character limit.
Schoolboy's bedroom raided after TV aerial interferes with air traffic control
A schoolboy, Nickie Chamberlain, was surprised when Government officials arrived at his bedroom and confiscated his television aerial because it was interfering with planes landing at a nearby airport.
Nickie, who is 12, had used the booster device for two years to watch cartoons, music channels and Big Brother on his 14-inch television.
But three weeks ago an official from the Office of Communications (Ofcom) turned up at his home claiming the £15 aerial was affecting planes landing at Luton Airport.
According to Ofcom, pilots coming into land at the airport had lost contact with the control tower because the faulty aerial was transmitting on the same frequency as the cockpit radios.
The communication problems meant pilots landing their aircraft had to scramble to change the frequency so they could continue to communicate with the control tower.
Air traffic controllers first noticed the communication problems on the flight path into Luton, which is directly over Nickie's house in Linslade, Beds., on October 6.
An Ofcom engineer was sent round to the house and used a handheld device to trace the signal to the small booster aerial sitting on top of Nickie's TV.
His father, DHL operations manager Dave Chamberlain, 46, said he could not believe a tiny aerial could affect aeroplanes flying over his house.
He said: ''We were told pilots flying over the house were losing contact with the control tower as they came into land.
''The engineer was waiting outside the house when I came home from work and told me pilots had been complaining and they had traced the signal to our house.
''I couldn't believe it and at first I thought the engineer was some sort of conman so I had to carefully check his identification and make sure he was for real.
''Then we went inside and he followed the signal using a special reader to my son's bedroom and his booster aerial - I was absolutely gobsmacked.''
Nickie, who lives in the three bedroom semi-detached house with his dad, brother Glenn, 14 and mother Erika, 42, said he was shocked to have caused so much trouble.
He said: ''When I found out what happened I was upset because I couldn't watch cartoons or the television for a while - but it's better than causing a plane crash.''
The Ofcom representative ordered Mr Chamberlain to dispose of the aerial in the bin.
A spokesman said they had been asked to trace the signal by National Air Traffic Control after complaints from pilots.
According to the spokesman the problem occurred because the faulty aerial started to malfunction and ''self oscillate'' - sending out a range of different frequencies.
The spokesman said: ''You essentially get a sound much like the screeching you get when you put a microphone too close to a loud speaker.
''The booster aerial was, at different stages, giving off the same frequency as the aeroplane radio and that is why the pilots were losing contact.
''Our field engineers regularly work with National Air Traffic control and were able to trace the signal back to this little boys bedroom.
''This is obviously quite unusual.''
A spokeswoman for the NATS said: ''The planes have multiple back-up communication systems and this is not something where any passengers were in any danger.
''Obviously safety is our major concern.''
No one at Luton Airport was available for comment.
Well that's interesting. I wonder how the silly thing was generating interference? I remember I had one of those rabbit ear boosters I used for FM when I was younger and it sometimes would mix the local powerful station with something else causing images to appear where they shouldn't be. Maybe that's what the kids antenna was doing. I just can't imagine it could have generated more than part 15 acceptable power levels to cause air traffic control to loose communication!??
Easy guess... it was a lousy design with parasitic oscillations. Probably never physically breadboarded and tested, just simulated on computers and sent to the manufacturer.
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