Last year the city of Plano Tx. (Yep Texas again...) converted thier city water sprinkler system for thier parks,city buildings and street medians to a radio controlled system to control water waste and save money.
This is all ran by a computer that gets input on meteorlogical readings and forcasts and tells the entire sprinkler system through out the city to come on or stay off. Great idea right????
Then it seemed that during this summer the grass started dying and the trees shriveled and they could'nt fiqure why the system did'nt want to work.
Well after an investigation, lo and behold it was traced to the new radio communication system installed for the Duncanville police department.
A city over 35 miles away to the south of downtown Dallas (Plano is located about 20 North of downtown Dallas). It was overiding the Plano system and not allowing the system to come on.
Now it will cost the city of Plano several hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert the system so Duncanvilles police radio won't interfer. But of course they are filing a complaint with the FCC first. OMG your taxes at work.