CB Operator Gets Static From Neighbors Over Transmissions : Palmdale: Roger Archer has filters on his equipment. But he still comes through on radios, phones and TVs.

Imagine a favorite Mozart CD has just finished and then, instead of silence, a local CB operator comes through loud and clear over the living room speakers.

Sometimes when Dawn Stockmann of Palmdale finishes playing a CD on her stereo, this is just what happens.

Stockmann and many of her neighbors say that for more than two years they have been picking up the transmissions of a CB enthusiast over their phones, radios, televisions, answering machines, electronic baby monitors and even fax machines.

“If you’re at the end of the CD, he comes blaring through,” Stockmann said.

“When he’s talking, it comes right over the radio--his voice and everything,” said Pamela Anderson, one of her neighbors.

But Roger Archer, a citizens band radio enthusiast for 20 years, said the problem isn’t entirely the fault of his equipment.

It’s his neighbors’ equipment, he says, along with poor building standards in the city.

“Why does the city allow contractors to install sub-par wire, non-shielded wire?” he asked, adding that residents could install filters on their equipment to block out unwanted noise.

Archer, who lives on West Kings Road, also said he has bent over backward to accommodate residents in the Anden/Vista Ledero neighborhoods, modifying his equipment to prevent his chatter from landing on someone else’s baby monitor.

“I’ve spent oodles of money trying to get off these people’s equipment,” he said.

Moreover, Archer said, his equipment “goes above and beyond FCC regulations,” saying that he is only required to have one filter for his CB transmitters.

Instead, he has three.

Archer said he kept buying more powerful equipment over the years, but he never expected it to become a problem.

But in the last two years, the wayward transmissions grew more annoying, prompting residents to collect 48 signatures on a petition this month demanding that the Palmdale City Council take action against Archer.

Council members said they would look into the issue next month.

City Councilman James Root, recalling the Nov. 12 council meeting in which angry residents presented their petition, said: “With the number of people that were there and the intensity of their emotions, you’ve got to believe their complaints are legitimate.”

Stockmann said as a parent she is concerned about the reliability of her emergency phone service.

“There are hundreds of kids in this neighborhood,” she said. “God forbid we have to call 911 and we can’t get through.”

Archer, meanwhile, pointed out that CB radio operators are important links to the outside world in a crisis.

“When it snows and the phone lines go down, I’ve made hundreds of 911 calls,” he said.

Archer also charged that angry neighbors have tried to get him in trouble with authorities. Once, when he went on a vacation, leaving his dog behind for a friend to feed, someone immediately called animal control officers to say the animal had been abandoned, he said.

“When we got back, the dog was in the pound,” Archer said.

Archer later reclaimed the dog after convincing officers that he had not abandoned his pet.

Most of Archer’s neighbors say they bear him no ill will.

But they formed a group, the Inner-Neighborhood Palmdale Action Committee, just to fight him.

The new group also hopes to crack down on other CB enthusiasts whose broadcasts annoy residents.

Archer said he responded to the complaints by removing one antenna and modifying his equipment to cut down on the interference.

But Clifford Plone, the committee chairman, said the problems persist.

Archer, meanwhile, said he has begun selling off his CB equipment but says he can’t predict when he’ll stop broadcasting.

He intends to keep using his high frequency ham radio equipment, however, although he may give up the CB.

“It’s too much hassle--too much headache,” Archer said. “Maybe I’ll go back to my high school hobby and find myself a car to restore.”

But even if the unwanted broadcasts on telephones and radios stop, Plone said his group will pursue the matter with the City Council.

“The city should still enact a building code to prevent this from happening in the future,” Plone said.