@emptywheel It’s in a frequency band used in the US by either two-way land mobile radios or TV stations depending on city (which is why some walkie talkies can be programmed to use it). In DC, it’s is used by a local TV station, which the out-of-towner insurrectionists might not have known.
@emptywheel This is made more confusing by the way digital TV channels are split between a “virtual” channel number (which you set your TV to) and an “RF” channel (which is the actual frequency but is invisible to the user). This station is on a different virtual channel from its RF channel.
@emptywheel Anyway, 476-482 MHz is TV RF channel 15 (used by a DC TV station on virtual channel 14, which would be 470-476 MHz if that were also its RF channel).
@emptywheel In any case, the lesson is clear: make sure to use only regionally coordinated and properly licensed frequencies when you conduct an armed insurrection against the US government with your friends.
@emptywheel To see how much WFDC would interfere with their radios, here's a 10MHz spectrum plot. The green area is the WFDC signal (476-482 MHz, Ch 15). The lower 2 MHz at the left is another TV signal on Ch 14. The little bumps in the final 2 MHz at the right are normal 2 way radio signals 
@emptywheel As you can see, the WFDC TV signal is overwhelmingly stronger than two way radios; it would completely cover and obliterate any walkie-talkie signals in that frequency range outside unless they were extremely close to each other.
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