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Culture February 28, 2017
The government will soon be cracking down on marijuana growers – but it’s not why you think.
See, it really all comes down to lighting. Turns out that the powerful lighting used to grow pot is actually causing severe interference for ham radio operators.
The American Radio Relay League has already filed at least four complaints against the Federal Communications Commission in Maine alone over the pesky electrical ballasts.
But they believe that the real problem stems from amateur growers not realizing that cheap ballasts can have fake FCC-compliance stickers. A representative from the League explained that marijuana grow lighting can be powerful enough to produce the same amount of radio interference as a 1,000-watt AM radio station.
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Mike Gruber, the Radio Relay League’s resident radio interference expert, even tested out that theory, telling WGME that one inexpensive ballast (sold by big-box retailers) produces 640 times the level of interference of a legal unit. Wow.
Another radio operator explained that the interference from pot growing lamps can sound like the static during a really bad lightning strike… except it just never seems to end. That’s likely because the growing lights power on and off for 12 hours at a time.
One operator in Boulder, Colorado told the publication that he found a way to fix the problem without government involvement. He instead tries to work with the growers individually, helping them to install a filtering system that can block out the interference.
And he’s not the only one who wants to keep the government at bay. Erin Worthing, a recreational marijuana caregiver from Cape Elizabeth, touted the benefits of simply buying FCC-approved grow lighting – particularly following the message from President Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer.
The much-maligned White House staffer recently warned the growing marijuana industry that there will be “greater enforcement” of federal laws.
“Under the current climate, we don’t want feds knocking on doors,” Worthing said. And hey, the better design of the FCC-approved lighting has even given Worthing higher-quality product.
Win-win.
