SHUT THE CELL UP

By ANGELA MONTEFINISE


February 20, 2005 -- Can you hear me now?

Unsuspecting cellphone users may find themselves saying that more often now that cellphone jammers — illegal gizmos that interfere with signals and cut off reception — are selling like hotcakes on the streets of New York.

"I bought one online, and I love it," said one jammer owner fed up with the din of dumb conversations and rock-and-roll ringtones.

"I use it on the bus all the time. I always zap the idiots who discuss what they want from the Chinese restaurant so that everyone can hear them. Why is that necessary?"

He added, "I can't throw the phones out the window, so this is the next best thing."

Online jammer seller Victor McCormack said he's made "hundreds of sales" to New Yorkers.

"The interest has gone insane in the last few years. I get all sorts of people buying them, from priests to police officers."

Jammers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from portable handhelds that look like cellphones to larger, fixed models as big as suitcases.

Their sole goal is to zip inconsiderate lips. The smaller gadgets emit radio frequencies that block signals anywhere from a 50- to 200-foot radius. They range in price from $250 to $2,000.

But don't expect to find jammers at the local Radio Shack — they're against Federal Communications Commission regulations because they interfere with emergency calls and the public airwaves. They are illegal to buy, sell, use, import or advertise.

A violation means an $11,000 fine, but the FCC's Enforcement Bureau has yet to bust one person anywhere in the country.

"This is not a crime that they're going after," said Rob Bernstein, deputy editor at New York City-based Sync magazine.

He said jammers are here, and their use is multiplying.

"Right now, there's a growing curiosity about jammers in the United States and New York," Bernstein said. "There's no better way to shut up a loudmouth on the phone, so people definitely want them and are finding ways to get them."

One way is at a spy shop on Third Avenue, which sells medium-sized jammers out of a back room for $1,500. The sales clerk there said he had sold jammers to a 50-year-old man who bought one to use on the Long Island Rail Road, and to restaurateurs.

Folks who run auto auctions also buy them to stop people from chit-chatting about prices and rigging their bids, the clerk said.

An employee at a West Village spy store said the shop also sells jammers, but only to people from other countries.

One local purchaser bought a portable jammer last year, and said he likes using it at Roosevelt Field mall on Long Island.

"One time I followed this guy around for 20 minutes," he said. "I kept zapping him and zapping him, until finally he threw the phone on the floor. I couldn't stop laughing. It was so cool."

Jammers were first developed to help government security forces avert eavesdropping and thwart phone-triggered bombings. But by the late 1990s they were being sold to the public.

There are suspicions that some hotel chains employ jammers to cut down on guests' cellphone use and boost in-room phone charges.
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As for the guy who followed someone else around for 20 minutes jamming his calls....that is really low.

If he were following me, I would have kicked him so hard in the balls they would have popped out his eye sockets.

I'd love to have that on an airplane before take off and after landing. I hate when the plane lands and the entire plane simultaneously pulls out their phones and star yelling.

Of course, how bad would that fuck up the cockpit?

sounds like somehitng that movie theaters should use(if they become legal) because no matter how many times they say pleast turn off all cell phones before the movie starts, you always hear one start to ring and someone decide to answer it and stay in the movie

Holy shit. That's so ridiculously awesome.

Oh man I want one of those so bad

i wonder if the small ones block all around you or if you kinda point it at the one you want jammed, i would like to aim it at specific people

This is even better than the people rigging their iPods to broadcast silence to radios blasting music in cars.

Regarding use on airplanes, while using a cellphone may not actually interfere with pilot communications, using a jammer almost certainly would. Bad idea.

--PunkDavid

Maybe I could just use it until the pilot comes on and says, "Take off is going to be slightly delayed, we can't hear shit on the radio." Then I'd turn it off and we could go.

I'm not sure which is worse. Listening to someone else’s phone call or people that are so bothered by it they need to buy a jammer. How is someone discussing their dinner plans on a cell phone any different than if the if two people sitting next to you on the train are discussing their dinner plans? I can understand if you're in a movie. Obviously you have some expectation that people will be quiet. However on a train I really don’t understand what the big deal is if I want to call my wife and let her know to order me the chicken chow mein.

It's more about the volume at which people are having discussions. I really don't care that people are talking, but the fact that many people are unaware that modern technology allows one to speak into a telephone at regular speaking volume and still get the message across to the person on the other end. When are people going to realize that you don't need to shout in order for the person on the other end to hear you? Fuck those people, they deserve to be zapped for causing a disturbance to everyone around them.

why is it that so many people like to talk at such a louder volume into cell phones?

I don't know. Still sounds like people bitching just for the sake of bitching.

I guess this gets into general cellphone courtesy questions, courtesy which has really gone downhill in recent years IMO.

My father commutes on the train into Manhattan every day. He's been doing it for 30 years. I've done it for about a year of my life as well. The train is a really wonderful place to spend an hour or two of your day when you can sleep or read or even work quietly. For a lot of people, it is the most relaxing part of their day. However, the proliferation of cellphones in the past ten years or so has made the train a less pleasant place for everyone. Yes, there have always been annoying people who talk too loudly, even to the person sitting right next to them, but it is truly baffling how many times cellphones ring in a 35 minute period. Not to mention, the last thing people want to hear on their ride home from a long day of work is someone talking in their "business voice", which never happened before cellphones made business calls during the commute possible.

--PunkDavid (id' rather sit next to a smoker)

Yeah this sounds like a great thing for every common dipshit to have access to. I hope they start busting people who use them.

We give dipshits access to a lot of more dangerous and frightening things than this (i.e. guns, cars, penises).

when did new york secede, anyway?