A man in Philadelphia decided he’d had enough with listening to his fellow bus passengers blab away on their cellphones. But instead of buying himself some noise-cancelling headphones or politely asking people to pipe down, he chose to fight back with a handheld device that jams their signals.
“I guess I’m taking the law into my own hands,” he told NBC10, which caught him red-handed with the illegal jammer, “and quite frankly, I’m proud of it.”
Those who ride the bus with the man say he should be ashamed, not proud.
“How dare you decide that I can’t speak to somebody or I can’t use my cellphone?” asks one passenger who spotted the man using the jammer on her way to work. “He’s blatantly holding this device that looks like a walkie-talkie with four very thick antennae. I started to watch him and any time somebody started talking on the phone, he would start pressing the button on the side of the device.”
Experts tell NBC10 that there is a good reason the FCC has made it illegal to jam cellphone signals: “With cellphone jammers you are limiting all types of communication tools that use the radio frequencies. You have the potential to cause a public safety disaster. Cutting off communication by not only our public officials to their dispatch centers but also cutting off the public’s communication to 911 can be a dangerous thing.”
When confronted by a reporter about the illegality of the device, the jamming gent said he believed it was “more of a gray area,” but hours later contacted NBC10 to say that after further research he would get rid of the jammer.
View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.
Rider Jams Cell Phones on Septa Bus [NBCphiladelphia.com]
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I’ll buy it for three fiddy. I’d love to prank the people who use their cellphones to price stuff at the flea market with this.
Why, because people shouldn’t be informed consumers or take advantage of arbitrage?
Nah. Because he wants to prank people, per his post. I’m not saying it’s mature, but I think it’s safe to say he isn’t angry about the search for knowledge.
lmbo I was just thinking what an a-hole anyone has to be to own and use one of these. You’ve just changed my mind lol
you can get your own at DealExtreme.com
I may be an asshole for saying so but I support this guy. However I don’t think that I’m any more of an ass then the people who are speaking so loudly on their phones that I can hear them load and clear with my headphones on.
He’s a hero in my book. I can’t stand it when trapped on a bus, in an elevator, in line somewhere…..and I”m forced to listen to people squawk LOUDLY about their sex lives, family squabbles, operations, etc. etc.
Guess what, people – I don’t want to hear to you talk!!
Do you have a problem with hearing two people talk directly to one another?
I would totally support it if you could only jam the assholes, but you also jam the people listening to pandora on their phones, the people quietly IM’ing people on their phones, the people playing words with friends, and the people just using their phone like a human being. I know its annoying to listen to them, but you can’t punish everyone, it would be like us executing all the suspects in a murder to ensure the murder received justice.
You know, it would also be good for any type of auctions, too.
$30 bucks and you can have one just like it. They have about a 30 foot range and are awesome for getting a bubble of silence around you when you want it. They make higher powered ones you can do other crazy things to, like say…. power it in your vehicle and secure it in your trunk with a remote to create a 100 meter bubble of silence around you. Damn it must suck to drive anywhere near me if you are trying to have a phone conversation…
I’m sure we will all have a reasonable and polite dialogue on this topic and arrive at a mutually agreeable solution.
Your icon offends me and therefore everyone opinion you have is wrong. Now, let me begin by going over a detailed list of your faults…
lmao!
It’s like Festivus… ” I got a lot of problems with you people! “
Well I found his icon intriguing and delightful!
…so, SCREW YOU MAN!
I’m going to hire this man to come to the movies with me.
yes!!
Totally! So when I release the ga… the thing in the theater, NOBODY WILL COME TO HELP! Muhahahahahahaha
I want the new “radar gun” from Japan that makes people stop talking in theatres.
http://gizmodo.com/5889582/the-crazy-gun-that-can-physically-stop-you-from-talking
I laughed myself to tears, at work, in a cubicle. Thanks for that
I have already figured out how to defeat it. No, I am not kidding.
I think it would be more effective to have a highly directional “brown note” gun. Point it at the guy talking on his cellphone in the theater and after he drops a deuce in his pants you can be pretty sure he won’t come back….
Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a jammer that’ll deal with loud candy unwrapping and/or popcorn eating.
Is there one to mute children?
This! Don’t take your hungry/dirty/wet infant(
I’ve never really been bothered by people using their cell phones on short bus rides. This guys is just as bad as the driver that sits in the left hand lane blocking everyone behind from passing.
I think you have nailed this one.
I hate that driver in the left lane. Freaking asshole.
Oh god, when we were kids on car trips, my Dad would sit in the HOV lane and go the speed limit. We would have a line of cars behind us and people risking 2 point tickets to cross the HOV barrier, pass us while flipping my Dad off and/or yelling at him from their window, and then cut back into the HOV lane so they could continue on their way at more than 50 mph. So embarrassing.
I always wondered what the wives of these guys thought.
After a few years (these were yearly summer trips) she just started taking her own car and grabbed one of us kids and the dog for company.
How do those short bus kids hear their phones while wearing their helmets?
Haha, oh god. That was funny.
So what if you’re like me and your bus ride is 20-30 minutes and you have to listen to some inane speech vomit for the entire ride? I understand why this guy is annoyed. Is it the right way to go about things, no, but some days I wish I had a jammer on the bus too.
Noise-cancelling headphones: $50. Middle-of-the-road generic MP3 player to go with them: $50. Total: $100.
Illegal cellphone jammer: $230. Fines for using one: $17,500. Total: 17,730
‘nuf sed.
I don’t get it. What’s the difference between having to hear two people behind you having a conversation, or one person behind you talking on their phone?
I agree – get a life. The bus ride isn’t all about you.
Usually, two people talking together will talk TO each other, not so loud, and I can easily tune them out. But some people, when using a cell phone, think they have to talk 10 times LOUDER than normal – that’s what is annoying.
Also, I think they’ve done studies on this, but there’s something disconcerting or disorienting about hearing only half a conversation. Something about how it affects your brain.
It’s not a grey area. The FCC has put the issue in black and white: Cell phone jammers are illegal.
Unfortunately, the FCC can’t legislate civility or manners.
Jammers are legal.
Using jammers is illegal.
Where can I buy one? I don’t want to use it, just to buy it. I swear.
Pay $21.60 and wait 1 month and it can be yours:
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/mini-portable-gsm-cdma-dcs-phs-3g-cell-phone-signal-jammer-blocker-102554
Know that using it carries fines of several thousand dollars and possible jailtime, and that it would take very, very little effort to discover not only that someone is using one, but to pinpoint their location (a simple frequency counter could do the job).
You’d be amazed how often that is the case. I think up until recently if was legal for suppressors to be owned in Wisconsin, as in NFA tax paid etc, but it was illegal to shoot with them, even if you were shooting legally, target shooting etc.
Agreed. Who knows WHAT wacko website he was surfing to suggest the FCC has left any wiggle-room here.
Wow. FCC makes laws? Who knew?
I’ve found that the best way of dealing with people who talk loudly on their phone in public is to respond to them as if they were talking to me. If they ask the person on the phone a question I’ll answer it to the best of my ability. And when I get a confused look I respond with “well you were speaking to all of us weren’t you?”
I wonder which cell phone company asked president Andrew Jackson to make sure that was the result.
Movie theater usage? Yes, I can get behind that, as long official usage had exceptions for emergency personnel (e.g. Doctors, Police, Firemen).
On a bus? Sorry, but no. For some people, that may be the only chunk of time they have during the business day to conduct personal business, sad to say.
A cell phone jammer can’t make those kinds of exceptions, since cell phones all use similar frequencies.
So if someone on the bus is having a heart attack, tough luck?
What happens if your jammer passes within range of someone on the sidewalk who is trying to dial 911?
And by “personal business,” you mean, “pooping.” I understand.
“politely asking people to pipe down”
Sounds like the author has never been on a bus, let alone a Philadelphia bus. Asking someone to “pipe down” while they endlessly prattle on about meaningless horseshit is an easy way to get assaulted.
Unless they know the Vulcan neck pinch.
Would you mind stopping that damn noise!
So let’s just inconvenience every responsible cell phone + ereader user on the bus because a handful of people are jerks. Good idea.
A cell phone jammer would not interrupt every e-reader.
Many e-readers double as tablets. My step-father often reads books from the cloud so jamming his signal will interrupt his reading.
aloria didn’t say “tablet”, he/she said “e-readers.” He/she also said it would interrupt “every … e-reader user.” This is demonstrably false. So, while you can go ahead and say “well, my car has a built in cell phone, so it breaks my car”, you’d be wrong.
Sorry for not adding the “e-reader or tablet that utilizes 3g functionality” caveat. I figured people could read between the lines, but I guess missing the point for the sake of nitpicking is just too darned fun.
Again, even if the e-reader has 3G functionality, if the books are on the e-reader already, the jammer doesn’t do anything to the e-reader. It’s not some EMP device that fries electronics.
Have you thought of the possibility that someone might finish their book while riding the bus and might want to download another one?
Of course not because you have to be right, and arguing with you is like talking to a brick wall if the rest of this chain is any indicator.
So do your duty as a citizen and defend yourself.
I get the guy’s point and do somewhat agree that people on phones can be irritating, however a device like that does not just impact phones on the bus, but anything within its radius. Regardless of that how does he know if someone is making an emergency call on the bus or nearby… that little device could cost someone their life in the worst case.
the model that he has is only really effective within 10 feet, unless you are in an area with very weak coverage, then probably 20+ feet.
A proper cellphone jammer uses a very high output power (eg 10-15 watts) and has a high gain antenna, or more common, a biquad antenna to cover a large room.
I hope this guy enjoys never being able to ride the bus without being beaten severely. (The sad thing is that’s me trying to be civil.)
While I’m not in favor of beating anyone, a little long-term public humiliation might be in order. This self-styled vigilante arrogantly chose to put his needs above the needs and safety of scores of other passengers. His argument that he didn’t know his behavior was illegal is not plausible — if you have the ability to purchase and employ such a device, you should easily be able to determine its legality (in about 10 seconds via Google). It’s too bad he didn’t end up with a fine and jail time, as provided by law. In the slammer, he might experience some jamming of a different sort.
Doing this on the bus is ridiculous and obnoxious. Dude, get a car if you don’t want to listen to people.
In college I really really wanted to do this in the library though. I don’t get why some people can’t figure out when it’s inappropriate to answer their phone.
I don’t think it’s about people talking — it’s about screwing with strangers It’s the kind of thing a 12 year old lives for — to be able have control and not be confronted about it
Yeah, one of my first electronic devices I built was a TV jammer. Back in the days of rabbit ears it was a hoot to mess with people trying to adjust the TV. Change the channel while I’m watching? I don’t think so.
Library? That’s nothing, I’ll never forget being at my son’s school for some little musical/play/skit thing his 1st grade class was doing. It was just a little thing done in the classroom with all ther chairs in a big circle so the parents could sit and watch it. Well 1 minute into it out comes this one guys cellphone and he started yammering in the standard pinhead loud cellphone voice “No, I’m not busy I’m just at my grandson’s play. It just started but it wont be much longer? Yeah we can go to lunch where do you want to go?” Since he had already brushed aside two people who tried to tell him to quiet down I decided to get involved and at this point I walked over behind him and whispered in his ear that if he didn’t get off the phone this instant that I would gladly shove it up his ass and if asked I bet everyone in the room will testify that in court that you did it yourself!”
You’re awesome.
So somehow that’s different from talking to someone in person? Just because you can’t hear the other half of the conversation? Oh wait, ya, that is it. Only hearing half a conversation causes a persons brain to freak out. Not gonna bother finding the data on this but there was a cracked.com article that mentioned it a while back.
You can’t whisper into a phone. You’re supposed to whisper in a library. It’s not complicated.
Those little handheld units have very limited range or very limited battery life. Jamming requires a bit of power, and the batteries won’t last long if it’s set up to have decent range. A guy had one at a convention I went to a couple of years ago, and it didn’t work worth a crap if you were outside reaching distance. Might as well just grab the phone at that point.
I have one. It’s main use is for inside (not outside over hundreds of feet). Also, it will work if you’re stopped at a light, turn it on, and watch someone not being able to jab on the phone next to you. I tested this and it works however I only use mine in movie theatre’s otherwise it stays packed away.
If were the driver doing the jabbering, sure. But it’s other people, and he doesn’t really have a place to jam their signals. Plus, he may be jamming other signals of other devices. What’s worse is that if there’s an emergency, that hammer may keep live-saving services from being contacted.
He may be proud of it, but we’ll see how he feels about comms being jammed when he’s in dire need of emergency aid.
its amazing that anyone survived in the pre-cell phone era.
Thank you! Everyone seems to act like there was total death and anarchy before the cell phone. No, most stores still have landlines, pay phones still exist, and if there was a REAL emergency, pretty sure he’d turn the jammer off. Your discussion with your girlfriend about what movie to see, what groceries to get, or did you hear about so-and-so is NOT important nor emergency worthy even if your distorted ego thinks so.
And yet, that does not give you the right to use a device illegally to end my conversation in a public space, even if your distorted ego thinks so.
What makes you think you have a right to be a nuisance and irritant to everyone around you?
Not everyone who uses their phone in public is loud & obnoxious. I always make sure that I speak in low tones and I never use it in inappropriate places like libraries, plays, movies, etc. I don’t think anyone has the “right” to prevent me or anyone else from having a quiet, polite conversation on a boring bus ride. They should mind their own damn business.
Amazing what people did before modern medicine, cars, and grocery stores too. Stupid, useless things that improve & simplify our lives, who needs em, right?
The problem there is he might know he’s blocking someone in an emergency situation. He could be on a bus at a stoplight just outside a shop or home, and a guy inside might be on with 911. Or just talking to a friend — a guy inside his own house doesn’t deserve to have his call jammed because of some dude on a bus.
In many areas it’s now illegal for a bus driver to use a cell phone while driving. So ‘report him’ is a valid move.
My vote is the guy’s a Jerk. Ear plugs, noise cancelling headphones, whatever.
It theory, it’s amazingly awesome. I don’t talk on my cell phone in public places, ever. I hate when people do it. They loose all sense of manners and social niceties, especially when they are pushing shopping carts. Many, many decent people become narcissistic, self-centered jerks when they talk on the phone in public.
As I said, it’s good in theory, but if someone were calling 911 on their cell b/c of an emergency, it could be an absolute disaster.
He really should have been smarter with this and hid it in a backpack when he was using it. He could have opened it enough to push the button and been nonchalant about it. Idiot.
I know right….what ever happened to good ole pay phones and land lines. How did people ever call 911 or contact someone before cell phones.
Umm……they’re gone? At least pay phones. Tell me the last time you even SAW a pay phone.
Or just keep it in a pocket.
Why are people so darned passive-aggressive nowadays? If someone is being loud or rude, grow a pair and tell them to quiet down.
In some places, you could get the crap beat out of you for asking someone to quiet down. We had a lady at a bookstore scream at us b/c we very nicely asked her to quiet down her call. You could literally hear every word she was saying a good 50 feet away. Many people don’t respond kindly to being asked to have some couth and to respect social norms.
I saw a lady slap a co-worker on the hand, while he was waiting on an entirely different customer, because he had refused to wait on her because she wouldn’t get off her phone.
I believe it defined “bitch slap”.
If he used this on Keanu and Sandra’s bus, I think it would have blown up.
Why doesn’t he just use a tazer on the worst offenders, instead of screwing with the guy just trying to make his moves in WWF?
I would have not been as obvious, kept it low key and acted as if my phone worked just fine. Illegal yes, but it sure sounds like fun!
I miss the days of people just riding in silence…staring out of the window, or simply reading a book. Now they are so self-obsessed, every inane detail of their lives must be broadcast at all times.
Seriously…think about it. How many people on cell phones at any time MUST be on the phone in public? .01%, maybe.
So just because someone is offended that people talk on their cell phone (which is not illegal that I know of) they automatically have the right to be a vigilante and break the law to stop it? What about people who just want to surf the internet? That doesn’t generate any noise yet they are being punished too. And really, why is it that people should only be allowed to do stuff that they MUST do according to someone’s arbitrary standards? I can’t chat with a friend in public if I want to? Being rude is one thing, but being rude to others because a minority of them may be rude is also offensive.
You’re reading too far into dole’s comment… All I saw was bemoaning the loss of quiet public transportation, not a justification of this guy acting like a jerk.
I’m torn on this one. Yes they are clearly illegal BUT people need to realize that a cellphone is a tool and not a life or lifestyle.
If your not a doctor being called in top perform emergency brain surgery then get over yourself, you call is not more important then paying for your items so the people behind you in line can pay for theirs and get going. It’s also not worth blinding everyone in the area inside a darkened movie theater because you just so you can text one of your idiot friends (often two seats away from you) to tell them what you think of the movie.
This is a bus, not a check out lane or movie theater. Nobody has the right to decide what is “important enough” for a phone call. If people want to chat on the phone, that’s their choice. Rude? Maybe. But still no one else’s call.
That is why I’m torn, if it was a theater or similar he would definately be a hero!
As for the bus, yes you can have a conversation, if you’ve ever been on public transit you would know that your average cellphone user tends to talk into their phone in a volume normally reserved for notifications of fires, ax wielding maniacs or superbowl touchdowns!
There was once where I took a call on a public transit bus. It wasn’t life or death, but it was addressing a possible business lead (didn’t pan out).
However, I did have common courtesy and tried to talk as softly as possible without sounding strange on the other end, and tried to keep it short.
At least attempting common courtesy can go a long ways, imo.
I bought one of these and use it at a local movie theatre whenever I go. It works great.
And to the passneger that said, “How dare you decide that I can’t speak to somebody or I can’t use my cellphone?” asks one passenger who spotted the man using the jammer on her way to work.
The street travels both ways. How dare YOU impose US to listen to your contant babble.
You’re in public where it’s generally socially acceptable to talk when you’re on a bus. You’d have no issue with passengers talking to each other, would you? What’s the difference? If you can’t deal with people, don’t ride a bus!
Who said I don’t have an issue with it?
But what about people are are using apps on their phone or are in other ways using 3G in a quiet manner?
In a movie theater, using a cell phone even silently is still annoying and rude. Do you really think that the bright light of the cell phone backlight stops when it leaves your seat area? Anyone using a cell phone for texting or anything else is a big beacon that says “I’M USING MY CELL PHONE” to anyone sitting behind you. It is still very distracting.
“The street travels both ways. How dare YOU impose US to listen to your contant babble.”
Freedom of speech does not include the right to silence others (no matter how annoying they may be).
FYI, there are established limits on freedom of speech.
When your freedoms infringe upon mine, do i have the right to demand/ask that you cease and desist infringing upon my freedoms? When that doesn’t work, then, we get the government, involved; That’s generally when everyone else will suffer because we couldn’t be adults and respect each other, so authority had to force us to.
Sucks to be the person having a heart attack or being raped in the hallway behind the theater you are in.
And what about the doctor sitting in the movie theater with his family who can’t receive the frantic texts from the nurses about his patient’s deteriorating condition because your self-righteous self has that jammer on? Or the OB/GYN who doesn’t know his patient’s in labor because you killed his pager.
He would exit the theater to call them to issue orders (or go to the hospital) but he doesn’t get the message because you bricked his phone. People’s lives can actually depend on these devices… you have no right to endanger others so you can watch your movie. You hate crowds that much, go to matinees.
Um, my husband is US service member. I lived by my phone while he was deployed. I would leave the theater to take my call- which always came in on vibrate. I was polite about it.
He was ultimately seriously injured, which is news that usually comes in by phone call. You’re a fucking asshole for deciding that people don’t deserve to receive life-changing information.
And if you tell me I shouldn’t go to the movies if I need to keep my phone on, I’m just going to reply that you’re completely irrational and need to quit going out in public until you can accept that people are going to be loud, use their phones, etc. You’re a bigger jerk than they are.
HUGE Jerk. While it’s safe to assume everyone is having pointless, meaningless conversations, there’s no way to be sure.
What if he’s sharing the bus with a doctor who is on call? Or a police officer? Or someone in the military? Some people NEED to be able to have access to their communicatoin devices on very short-notice. It’s not likely, but it is possible that this could *literally* kill someone.
Yeah, what if a doctor, who just happened to be riding home on the bus, got a call saying he was needed to perform emergency brain surgery?
Well let’s be honest, if the guys riding the bus your probably better off with a different surgeon anyways. lol!
Yeah I agree! I was just on a city bus yesterday with a neurosurgeon who was doing an operation remotely on his blackberry. He was seated directly across from S.E.A.L. Team 6.
What did people do before cell phones? I’ve been wanting a jammer in my car. I can always tell when that car slows down in front of me and you see the car glowing because they are texting or talking. Some people need cellphones implanted in their heads. Ridiculous!
Guaranteed –
If the guy tried doing that here, in NY City, with its high-profile, anti-terrorism and post-9/11 climate — he’d be arrested, most likely be turned over to the Dept. of Homeland Security, and would probably never see his little jammer device again.
And – you know what ?
Every day when you and I go out in public, we are faced with any number of behaviors and actions of other people which we find overwhelmingly annoying and grating and upsetting and inappropriate — because we don’t like them.
Remember the thread here about women breast-feeding in public ?
I think it was Camilla Paglia who said — “The definition of being out in public is having to tolerate the behaviors of others which you can’t stand.”
Sounds right. That’s why I stay at home.
I make my own cell phone calls at home.
He can’t hear calls with his earphones on… He’s a child that wants to screw with adults and not be confronted. It’s hi tech itching powder…
while there are some people that I wish would stop using their cellphone, (eg the ones that cant help but talk extremely loudly on their phone, even worst, when they are talking loudly with their mouth facing you and spit flies out)
in which case you have to yell at them, but jamming cellphones is not good because it goes against peoples freedoms.
if you want to be free, you have to allow others to be free.
An area where I would support it’s use, is a is a movie theater. it is private property so they get to impose additional rules. Furthermore, an in place system can have bypass features added, like an emergency button that activates an alarm but allows a phone cellphones to work
When i encounter people talking loudly in public on their cell phones I treat it as an invitation to join in the conversation.
You’d better make a video next time. I want to see it.
I work retail and there have been so many times that I’ve answered a customer who was talking on their cell while shopping… Thankfully, they have so far either not noticed or pretended not to notice.
When I am in the bathroom and people are talking on their phone, I start coughing and making really loud noises like I am clearing phlem out. I have yet to have a person not stop or leave. I tolerate it in stores and what not, but I am not going to be forced to listen to someone talk on the phone when I am doing my business.
I would have loved to had a jammer when I took my (then 4 year old) daughter to the bathroom and this woman in the next stall was using a cell phone to have a nasty break up with a person I am assuming to be her boyfriend. The crying and yelling, “It’s over!!” I could explain to my daughter. I really didn’t think she needed to hear about whores, b!tches and f–k you. I get that she was upset, but this wasn’t a conversation for a tiled bathroom where her already loud voice carried.
Just yesterday my 4 year old grand daughter saw a young woman talking on her phone loudly and waving her hands in the middle of a store. Her response was to point and say ‘Why is that girl so RUDE?!”
My wife and I nearly laughed our selves senseless.
He was opening himself up to a lawsuit.
Why does this site have an obsession with the word confronted? How about say when he was asked, they make everything seem like an aggressive move.
a news camera and mike in your face asking about your illegal device..textbook confronting
actually that’s approaching
I would love to have my own personal jammer that jams cell phones a nice 50 foot radius around me. Then again, I’m still waiting for Star Trek transporter…oh well…
Hero!
If he’s looking to get rid of it, I live close by and will pay cash….
How awesome would this be in movie theaters!?
He’s not a hero or a jerk. He’s just a criminal.
Um… Jerk. In what world is he a hero? I guess people talking in public can be annoying, but it’s effing public. That means you don’t get to decide who things other people can do there. If you want to jam calls in your house, go for it.
I’m not even going to get into all the potential safety issues.
What he doesn’t understand is he is violating FCC rules, can be subject to $10,000 fines per day per violation, and can even be convicted of a Federal crime for it. What he also doesn’t get is these wideband jammers also have the potential to affect other radio services that are in the same bandwidth, including 800MHz which is used by many police/fire radios. The potential for his jammer to interfere with police/fire radios in urban areas (including Philadelphia, which uses an 800MHz digital trunked system for police, fire and EMS) is great.
I’m sure he wouldn’t feel so hip if his bootleg jammer locked up a cop or firefighter radio nearby and caused them to get hurt or worse yet killed.
There is a reason why the FCC rules prohibit the use of these devices, public safety being the prime reason. and yes, any interference to public safety radio services are given top priority and taken VERY SERIOUSLY.
There are more creative ways to draw attention to the problem of cellphones. How about getting lots of little noisemakers that intermittently play recordings of cell phone rings, and hiding them all over the bus, like under the seats, etc.
That’s fun, probably not illegal, and makes people notice the problem.
“How dare you decide that I can’t speak to somebody or I can’t use my cellphone?” Oh what a self-absorbed narcissistic society we are. Hats off to this guy for standing up to the self-righteous antisocial personality-disorder crowd. It is sad that people have such high regard for their own “rights”, and yet have zero regard for any other person’s. This is what we get for raising entitled prima donna children who grow up being made to believe that they’re “special” as they face-plant themselves in their phones all day and night . An entire generation now gloatingly advertises itself electronically thinking that other people actually give a damn about their personal lives. Reality: You’re probably the only one who cares about your Facebook page or Twitter account. $350 gets you one of these magnificent devices shipped directly to your door from the PRC. Don’t leave home without it.
i would love this device on the bus. So many obnoxious morons on their phones. i’m surprised how many people are defending their right to be rude jerks. and then you get the morons driving on the road on their cellphones.. everywhere..
unfortunately its only a pipe dream as the threat of interfering with fire and life safety services should far outweigh my own personal discomfort (and would be the reason its illegal, not some personal freedom rubbish)… grrr..
but i can dream.. as my wife passes yet another moron on his cellphone on the highway, i lock eyes with him and push the button… and his cellphone call ENDS.. muhahahahaha!!!
“not some personal freedom rubbish”
Yes. How dare someone have the right to use their legally-obtained cell phone in a public place! Your right to your perfect world is supreme!
All hail Lord SavijMuhdrox!
/snark
you can’t quote your right to use your legally obtained cellphone in a public place as the reason it is illegal to jam said signals.
its like making something illegal simply because it frustrates you personally. oh, i guess its illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater because it interrupts my viewing of the film.. hmmm.. no wait..
/double snark
Is this guy listening to be sure he’s only cutting off chitchat calls, or is he simply cutting off every phone? Dude seriously needs a new hobby.
I understand why they are illegal. In a city like Philly, all types take the bus. My fiance is a physician and took it when we lived there. Sometimes he is on call overnight. If he gets on the bus to work and gets an emergency call (which has happened), he gets off at the next stop so he can speak privately about the health issue. But he listens to the report from the hospital until that happens. If this guy jammed his phone, he’d lose the call. If you’ve ever had to navigate a hospital phone system, then you know that getting that caller back on the line could be really difficult for him and cost the patient some time.
There are other less life-or-death reasons that one might properly use the phone in public. Jamming phones doesn’t correct anyone’s behavior. It just makes poorly behaved people become angry, poorly behaved people. And it could also jam a nearby EMT or police phone that has a legitimate, serious reason to be used in public.
Actually, it is legal to disrupt cell phones from working … as long as you do it without transmitting, and do it on your own property. That’s why it’s legal for theaters to put up radio blocking shielding. That, and the other reason is to keep the signals they do transmit inside the theater (for people using the special headphones they sell) from leaking outside.
Honestly, I have no idea what the difference is between talking on a cell phone and talking to another passenger. I’ve never noticed a big difference in volume.
I read… something… somewhere… where a study showed that hearing one end of a conversation REALLY, REALLY annoys us. Apparently our brain freaks out when it can’t put the pieces of a conversation together, so that’s why we’re distracted by cell phone usage. A normal conversation barely registers because our brain doesn’t have to process what’s being said, but a one-way conversation throws us off.
Any time I’ve seen people on the phone, they are talking way too loud. Like if they speak up, they might be able to hear the other person better.
It’s possible you’re only noticing the loud talkers and unintentionally ignoring the soft talkers. It’s amazing what we do and do not remember based on our annoyances and pet peeves.
AFAIK, part of the reason people tend to talk a little louder on cell phones is because cell phones don’t do a good job of relaying what we say back into our own ears. So we hear ourselves as softer than we typically perceive on a land line, so we raise our volume a bit to make up for it.
Though, I really haven’t noticed people talking on cell phones being incredibly louder than normal conversations – a slight volume increase, yes, but nothing crazy. I think that probably what makes it so annoying is that we are only hearing one side of the conversation, so our brains take more notice than we would to a normal conversation.
I’d be pissed off at that guy had he been jamming my cell phone signal. I keep my conversations to a minimum, sticking mostly to texts or just surfing the internet. I don’t see how that is a bother to anyone else.
Give me one of these, and the remote to change the stop light at intersections, and I will assume absolute power over this country in a matter of weeks.
When you take public transportation, those are the breaks. You deal with the PUBLIC, and some of those people have differing manners, priorities, and responsibilities than you do. If you want your own cell-phone free environment, get a car.
I know sometimes I’ll take the train into the city and they have “quiet cars”, in which cell phone use is severely frowned upon. If you get a call you’re supposed to walk to another car or accept the scorn from fellow passengers in the quiet car.
Creating an RF blackout because you just don’t like hearing cell phone calls is just plain irresponsible. Do I think it would be interesting to try or even moderately humourous in certain situations? Sure.. but you never know what people are talking about. What about the person who may be taking their last call from a loved one? What about someone having a legit emergency? The thing about cell phone jammers like this is it creates a “sphere” of jamming, which interrupts not only those you want to jam but others as well.
Their use is highly irresponsible and shelfish and I’m glad they aren’t legal.
I agree with the fellow – I’d LOVE to have a phone jammer – but why would you flaunt something like that in their faces? Just keep it in your pocket and hit ZAP on the sly.
This guy should get his wish, He should be put in solitary while he serves his time in prison for the terrorist act he has been committing.
Seriously I believe he was UN-remoseful & knew he was caught committing a crime so he tried to play it off. He needs to pay for his crime & it would be funny if he was sued by anyone that he caused to loose a call.
Two Wrongs Never Makes a Right Period.
“He should be put in solitary while he serves his time in prison for the terrorist act he has been committing”.
Yeah, that guy was even worse than the 9/11 hijackers!
Newsflash: When someone responds in kind to your obnoxiousness in public and your hopelessly selfish limited view of the world that leads you to believe that your “right” to blast off in public on a cell phone supersedes the rights of others to enjoy peace and quiet, that is not a terrorist act. What a hopelessly selfish and stupid comment.
When in public, I generally like to text; however there are times when I do need to answer the phone. I work on call, so not answer means I am out of work. It can range from a few hours to well over a month of shifts. If that were to happen to me, I would sue the guy if I ever found out for the money I had just lost. Cell phones are a fact of life right now. Employers have adapted to workers carrying cell phones. As I never know when I am going to be called, I need to carry my cell phone with me all the time. Generally it is on silent, or on vibrate so it does not annoy anyone. I know how to use a cell phone correctly.
Since he’s trapped on the bus, everyone should just fart on him.
I don’t know about hero or jerk, but he’s definitely an idiot.
Why not just paint ‘MY CELL JAMR’ on it in big red letters?
If you get a powerful enough linear amp you can jam police radar from you speeding car lol but they will be very upset with you lol.
Make this guy do at least a year in prison.
I am 100% in this guy’s corner. I take a bus (private company, not a city bus) to work everyday. Each way is about 1 to1.5 hours. The bus company has a policy to only use cells in emergency, or to get picked up. Seems every other day, I have someone behind me that talks on the phone the whole time.
Sometimes the bus driver makes an announcement when he hears them, but it is ridiculous. You have people that get up at 5am to go to work, and would like some peace and quiet. If you ask them politely, they just glare at you, like you are the one interrupting them.
It is actually a federal felony to use a jammer anywehre in the United States. He can get an $11,000 fine every time he turned it on, plus prison time.
a jerk, there’s a reason they are illegal.
The outraged, entitled comments making up the majority of replies to this post are really well thought out. Congratulations everyone.
Now go learn some etiquette so people won’t feel compelled to jam your phone for being an entitled, obnoxious ass.
Let’s be honest here: if people weren’t so inconsiderate with their phones, devices like this wouldn’t have to exist. Is it really so hard to ask people to behave themselves?
Thinking I’m going to buy one of these for myself now.