Which is all the more reason that consumers need to be very careful what they are buying. It would be interesting to see under what exact conditions these radios comply with Part 90. Reduced power? Reduced deviation? I have seen a number of low parts count radios where to meet the required emission masks, the deviation or power must be reduced. A look at the FCC grant is required to discern such shenanigans.
Edit: I did look at most of these to see what emission designators were used. Only one had proper 11K0F3E part 90 narrow band. The rest have odd bandwidth from 5 to 10 KHz. That means they will have poor modulation . These are junk radios for part 90.
Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk
I think the short answer is....they don't. The TCBs are letting this stuff slip through the cracks and nobody at the FCC is checking.
One useful feature of ham radios that the CCRs have is full end user programmability directly from the radio's keypad. This makes the radio ineligible for Part 90 (or 95) even if it meets all other technical requirements (freq tolerance/stability, bandwidth, modulation, etc.). The end user can easily dial up any transmit frequency on the fly instead of staying only on the specific frequencies they are licensed for. This is fine for legit ham use but not OK on other radio services.
High quality Part 90 equipment from reputable manufacturers (Motorola, Kenwood, EF Johnson, Hytera, etc.) typically include some level of field programmability. Access to the feature is limited by some method (per FCC rule?) so the normal Part 90 end user can't put the radio in field program mode and can only operate on the programmed channels. It is just a channelized radio to the Part 90 end user. In Kenwood and Hytera radios I've owned, the field program aka self-program feature is enabled or disabled using the programming software. The radio dealer normally does the programming and disables the self-program feature before delivery to the Part 90 end customer.
The problem with the CCRs is they come with full transmit capability enabled right out of the box on all frequencies it covers. That's full transmit capability on 136-174MHz and 400-470MHz, and some work a ways up into the UHF T-band. Any transmit frequency can be dialed up on the fly from the radio's keypad. Programming software (i.e., CHIRP) is another way to do it but there's no restrictions to ensure the radio can operate only as a channelized radio for a Part 90 (or 95) end user. This can be potentially dangerous in terms of harmful interference threats when in the hands of the wrong people, including clueless users.
I agree, they are junk radios. They are junk radios, period.
Sent from my XP8800 using Tapatalk
