NJ resident Hans Reimer agreed to pay $5,000 to settle an Enforcement Bureau investigation into whether he used a GPS signal jammer near Newark International Airport. Assisted GPS uses proximity to cell towers to calculate position when GPS signals are not available.
Signal jammers overpower, jam, or interfere with authorized communications. FCC regulations prohibit their use.
To settle the case, Reimer admits he operated a personal GPS signal jamming device while driving a vehicle leased to his employer near the Newark International Airport and agrees he won’t use such devices in the future. Reimer will pay a $5,000 civil penalty within 30 days. He pays another $15,000 if in the next ten years if the agency finds out he operated a signal jammer or otherwise violated the terms of the settlement.
In exchange, the Enforcement Bureau ends the investigation, which began in 2018. That’s when the Commission received a complaint from the FAA that its Ground-Based Augmentation System (which uses GPS) at Newark International Airport was experiencing harmful interference. Enforcement Bureau agents traced the illegal signal to a van driven by Reimer on the New Jersey turnpike near the airport.
August 27, 2019
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