@p @jeremiah

> How do they even know it's you?

Geolocation (triangulation) and deducing based on who has a license in that area. I guess if you didn't bother getting a license and used low enough power, sparingly enough, you'd probably be fine. The HackRF module can transmit up to 50mw which is plenty for lab/development use. I only know of one guy who got arrested (actually went to jail) for being a retard on the radio, but he was persistent about it, on a very public repeater, over many weeks.

I think the general feeling in the ham radio community is that the government is always trying to auction off frequencies (which is a gay concept in itself) to big companies, and the ham radio frequencies are looking more and more appealing to sell, so (they believe) playing nice with the rules will make that less likely to happen.