Use the "Frequency Coordinator" tab here to find one:
![]()
Industrial / Business Licensing
Licensing Individuals or entities desiring to operate on frequencies listed in the Industrial/Business Pool are required to obtain a radio station license for these frequencies. Below is some helpful information to aid you with the licensing process.www.fcc.gov
You will need to pay the frequency coordinator, and that can be a few hundred bucks for one frequency pair. Unless you have filed for these types of licenses before, there can be significant value in having the coordinator do it for you. That can prevent a lot of headaches.
Make sure you license not only for your repeater (FB2) but the radios (MO), and license for simplex operation on your repeater output frequency.
I have noticed every police vehicle do not have a VHF 1/4 band whip anymore only the black low profile round 700/800 antennaSADLY IT WILL BE FIXED IF THE HAVE A CONTRACT . ITS UP TO THE MONTGOMERY METRO TO FIX IT. VERY DOUBTFUL IF THEY COME OFF THE SYSTEM. MAKES ME WONDER IF THE FIRE KEPT VHF RADIOS IN THE ENGINES ETC . OR MAYBE THEY HAVE THE OLD VHF HT . SINCE AUBURN DOES NOT OWN THE SYSTEM ONLY THE RADIOS. I CANT SEE THEM PULLING THE NEW TRUNKED RADIOS OOS. AND GOING BACK TO VHF,
I HATE TO SAY BUT AUBURN GOT SCREWED. THEY SHOULD HAVE PUT A TRUNKED RADIO IN A FLOAT CAR TO TEST IT OUT.
My stepfather was a captain at OPD over the radio system and has the numbers up to 2013 when he retired. I was at the 4/2/19 Council meeting and brought up several issues in my 5 minutes, the former public safety director says they tested radios in areas that the VHF WT's had a hard time getting out and they were pleased, he said reps from the PD and FD agreed that this was the best system. I brought up the Alabama Interoperable Radio System (AIRS) and that Opelika is on it (at the time it was called the Alabama First Responder Network) the former director said Opelika has spent millions in just upgrades to keep their system up which is a lie, I have the exact numbers the system cost and what the tower with antennas cost and the cost of the maintenance contract. My stepfather was a captain at OPD over the radio system and has the numbers up to 2013 when he retired. My stepdad gave me the exact costs of OPD's system from the initial build to rebanding including replacing one antenna hit by lightning burning 2 feet off of it reducing coverage by 20 miles, they spent 85K to replace that antenna.
The man promoted to captain to take my stepdad's position in Special Services told me he approached Auburn and offered to build a tower or lease space on a tower in the "trouble" spots and they had more than enough talkgroups for APD and AFD. But Auburn turned them down, Lee County has a TG Auburn had TGs when I was a dispatcher at OPD, they were never placed on active. On Auburn game days I had to patch LCSO Tac West, OPD Events TG, and State Net 155.010 the Montgomery PD officers had to use the State Net patch to their radios with APD's second system at the university PD substation antenna.
When OPD built the system 15 years or so ago APD and Lee County said they would go on it but both backed out and OPD already licenced far more 800mhz frequencies than just OPD needed.
The then public safety director said the VHF WTs had a hard time getting out when inside a building, he could not wrap his head around the fact 700/800mhz has far more penetration, in fact, the FCC had this to say: "The 700 MHz Band is an important swathe of spectrum available for both commercial wireless and public safety communications. The Band consists of 108 megahertz of spectrum running from 698-806 MHz and was freed up as a result of the Digital Television Transition. The location of the 700 MHz band -- just above the remaining TV broadcast channels -- gives it excellent propagation characteristics. This allows the 700 MHz signals to penetrate buildings and walls easily and to cover larger geographic areas with less infrastructure (relative to frequencies in higher bands)."
He could not understand the tighter frequency spectrum has better penetration, TV signals penetrate buildings and over 1000 TV stations are moving to new frequencies, in fact, today a helicopter removed the antenna from WSFA-TV 12 from their 2,000-foot tall tower to replace it with an antenna to broadcast on RF channel 8 virtual still 12.1-12.5
The city manager and then public safety director blew a lot of smoke to the council but I did get the proposal tabled and removed from the 4/2/19 agenda, only to have the next meeting with those two blowings Harris's smoke about how much better Harris is, I don't believe they got better reception off a demo base on the ground to the far side of the PD jurisdiction.