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Baofengs on LMRS Frequencies

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VE5LPL

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So I was/am wondering if I buy 3 Baofeng UV-5R's [Already own one] also please take into note I am not dealing with the FCC I am dealing with IC (Industry Canada). then get a Land Mobile Radio Licence for 4 Radios for 5 Watts Max. Would it be legal since I am technically using Ham Licensed Radios? or would I half to buy Commercial Radios, and If it is illegal to do that would IC be able to find out... I would be within power and frequency limits. This is for VHF Comms to non-hams.

- 73's,VE5LPL
Please Reply Below. :)
 

robertmac

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The ultimate information on this would probably be obtained from your local IC office. All use of radios in Canada with some exceptions, such as FRS and CB, require licensing. When applying for license, I believe the type of radio used must be specified. I don't know why one would even consider using these CCR illegally when there are proper ways of doing things.
 
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slicerwizard

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Would it be legal since I am technically using Ham Licensed Radios? or would I half to buy Commercial Radios, and If it is illegal to do that would IC be able to find out... I would be within power and frequency limits. This is for VHF Comms to non-hams.
I'm no expert, but how would this legal? Ham radios on non-ham frequencies used by non-ham operators? Did I get that right?

Then again, you seem to be more concerned with whether you'd get caught than whether it's legal, so maybe I'm off topic...
 

jwt873

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The problem with the Baofeng U5-5R is that it isn't approved for any commercial application in Canada. That's why they sell them as ham radios. Amateurs are the only people who can legally use them.

FWIW, I know that IC did allow a sports car club in Manitoba to use cheapie Chinese UHF radios (can't remember the brand). The club uses them for race communications at their road race track. These radios only have a channel switch, (no VFO) and only have the authorized frequencies programmed.

If you check with Industry Canada, I'm sure they can provide a list of approved radios for your intended use... Or at least point you in the right direction so you know what to look for.
 
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DaveNF2G

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The entity formerly known as Industry Canada* has similar technical and licensing requirements to the FCC's. Radios need to be authorized for service categories in Canada also.

*Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISEC)
 

jwt873

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The entity formerly known as Industry Canada* has similar technical and licensing requirements to the FCC's. Radios need to be authorized for service categories in Canada also.

*Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISEC)

Yea, the federal entity that oversees radio in Canada has changed names so many times, I've lost count. Since I got my ham license, it's been called:

Department of Communications
Communications Canada
Industry Science Canada
and now Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

I think there is one more in there I missed... :)
 

Rred

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Last time I checked, none of the Baofeng radios were "ham licensed" radios here in the US.

In the US, a radio must be FCC type certified to be imported, advertised, marketed, or sold "as" a ham radio, and none of these are. In theory the FCC should be handing out $10,000 fines and "cease and desist" notices to ALL the vendors.

But since a licensed ham can personally assume all responsibility for experimental gear, and with that consideration is encouraged to try making anything including a coffee pot into a ham radio...US hams can legally use these uncertified radios. At their own risk. (An ARRL study of actual radios has shown the vast majority are out of compliance with technical standards, and as such subject to penalties, in actual use after just a year or two.)

Canada? Eh? Are any of the BF radios type certified for any use up there? Very few are Type90 certified for commercial use down here, and no one, including BF in China, will comment on whether the certified and uncertified units of the exact same model really have any difference, or whether there is just some importer slapping stickers on them.

Caveat emptor. They make great cheap radios, but when it comes to legality and conformance...used commercial radios might be a safer and better way to go.
 

jonwienke

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An ARRL study of actual radios has shown the vast majority are out of compliance with technical standards, and as such subject to penalties, in actual use after just a year or two.

Citation?
 

W8RMH

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So I was/am wondering if I buy 3 Baofeng UV-5R's [Already own one] also please take into note I am not dealing with the FCC I am dealing with IC (Industry Canada). then get a Land Mobile Radio Licence for 4 Radios for 5 Watts Max. Would it be legal since I am technically using Ham Licensed Radios? or would I half to buy Commercial Radios, and If it is illegal to do that would IC be able to find out... I would be within power and frequency limits. This is for VHF Comms to non-hams.

- 73's,VE5LPL
Please Reply Below. :)
Government agents read these forums too ya know.
 

Rred

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A citation is a Cessna aircraft.

But you can do your own homework on the ARRL web site, since you apparently haven't been reading QST, where a summary of the results was published maybe a year ago.
 
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DaveNF2G

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A citation is a Cessna aircraft.

But you can do your own homework on the ARRL web site, since you apparently haven't been reading QST, where a summary of the results was published maybe a year ago.

No, a Citation is a Cessna aircraft. A citation is a pointer to reference material.

Wanna be pedantic? Gotta learn to play with the big boys. LOL.

Not everybody reads QST. ARRL claiming to represent all U.S. hams does not make it so.
 

KK4JUG

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No, a Citation is a Cessna aircraft. A citation is a pointer to reference material.

Wanna be pedantic? Gotta learn to play with the big boys. LOL.

Not everybody reads QST. ARRL claiming to represent all U.S. hams does not make it so.

A citation can also be a traffic ticket.

And you're right. ARRL doesn't represent all of us. I let my membership lapse several years ago. Most of the stuff in the mag was simply of no interest to me.
 

jonwienke

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I find it curious that Connect Systems radios got a 100% Compliant rating by the study, but TYT (the actual manufacturer of Connect Systems radios) only got a 50% Compliant rating. Not sure how putting an American brand name on the case magically improves build quality...
 

Rred

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ARRL might not represent all hams, and how their usual "Santa story" fits in a magazine "about ham radio" every year doesn't seem like a proper function either. But the FCC sometimes listens to them, the ITU sees them as our formal organizing body, and they're the best (and only) thing we've got. So it pays to join. To chide them for the policies we don't like, and to benefit from what we've got.

Like their "oh gee" field study of radio conformance. (The Big Three all pretty much passed 100%.)

As to magic brand names...We, as rubes (excuse me, I meant valued customers) sometimes never do know what the deal is. Years ago I bought "white box" 7" recording tape that looked just like the 10x more expensive 3M product. And back then, you could get real product engineers on the phone. One of them explained to me that it was in fact the EXACT same product. Except, 3M put their tape through a quality control test, and if it had more than ## dropouts per thousand feet, it got sold off as cheaper, lower quality "white box". In memory chips and ICs, the producers run qc tests to meet milspec speed and quality ratings. Once they have ## pieces that meet their milspec needs, the rest go (often unsorted) on the general market. Same thing with "white" LEDs today, they may come off the line in three color grades and three brightness grades, and you pay a premium if you want them sorted and matched.
So the brand name? Could mean "Hey, do a QC test and only ship us the radios that perform within 2% of spec." Sometimes it means the product was sorted, sometimes the product was tuned, sometimes it just means the product was tested.
SONY made a huge success of their Trinitron color TVs for many reasons. They wanted a product that would never arrive DOA, unlike cheaper sets. So the components were tested individually, then again on sub-assembly, and a third time after the TV was ready to go. Three full levels of testing. Result? A very expensive TV, but one that never arrived DOA, or at least very rarely did.
When you buy a name brand, you buy that brand's reputation, and how that reputation is made? Sometimes just isn't discussed. Sometimes, it isn't real, either. The rubes always buy the sizzle and rarely the steak.
 

N4KVE

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I find it curious that Connect Systems radios got a 100% Compliant rating by the study, but TYT (the actual manufacturer of Connect Systems radios) only got a 50% Compliant rating. Not sure how putting an American brand name on the case magically improves build quality...
That's because Connect Systems radios are made by COVALUE. Not TYT.
 

n5ims

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As to magic brand names...We, as rubes (excuse me, I meant valued customers) sometimes never do know what the deal is. Years ago I bought "white box" 7" recording tape that looked just like the 10x more expensive 3M product. And back then, you could get real product engineers on the phone. One of them explained to me that it was in fact the EXACT same product. Except, 3M put their tape through a quality control test, and if it had more than ## dropouts per thousand feet, it got sold off as cheaper, lower quality "white box". In memory chips and ICs, the producers run qc tests to meet milspec speed and quality ratings. Once they have ## pieces that meet their milspec needs, the rest go (often unsorted) on the general market. Same thing with "white" LEDs today, they may come off the line in three color grades and three brightness grades, and you pay a premium if you want them sorted and matched.
So the brand name? Could mean "Hey, do a QC test and only ship us the radios that perform within 2% of spec." Sometimes it means the product was sorted, sometimes the product was tuned, sometimes it just means the product was tested.
SONY made a huge success of their Trinitron color TVs for many reasons. They wanted a product that would never arrive DOA, unlike cheaper sets. So the components were tested individually, then again on sub-assembly, and a third time after the TV was ready to go. Three full levels of testing. Result? A very expensive TV, but one that never arrived DOA, or at least very rarely did.
When you buy a name brand, you buy that brand's reputation, and how that reputation is made? Sometimes just isn't discussed. Sometimes, it isn't real, either. The rubes always buy the sizzle and rarely the steak.

And sometimes this parts testing and validation is done to sell parts that otherwise would just be junk to be sold and used successfully for less demanding situations. This was also done to produce various types of the same part, such as various speed chips, where the speed rating was how fast that particular chip was certified to run. For example, testing had some chips passed at 5 MHz and were rated at that speed while others failed at 5 MHz, but ran just fine at 2.5 MHz and were rated there and were sold at a lower price.

A product example of this is the original Tandy Color Computer. It was designed to use RAM chips that failed testing as a 64K chip, and was rejected, but further testing certified that the upper or lower 32K was good. Those "rejects" were sorted into ones that failed (and tossed), ones that had good upper 32K (and sorted to be used together), and ones that had good lower 32K (and sorted to be used together). Those partially good chips were used in the product and a jumper was set to indicate the upper or the lower 32K bank was to be used. Since the design reserved 32K for ROM and only used a max of 32K for RAM, this allowed for a lower selling price. To be fair, Radio Shack did advertise them as 32K RAM computers.

Later on, the manufacturing process improved, allowing for fewer rejects so they simply set the jumper to use the lower bank and used standard "non-rejected" RAM chips. Folks later were able to use a hack to enable the full amount of RAM for larger programs or faster operation using just RAM (by copying the ROM into RAM). It also allowed folks to modify the ROM image to customize the computer's operation.
 

jonwienke

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That's because Connect Systems radios are made by COVALUE. Not TYT.

They share a lot of internals and firmware code with TYT; TYT and CS DMR encryption uses the same proprietary algorithm.
 

Rred

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We took advantage of that in the early days of the IBM PC/AT computer. The CPUs and memory would crap at depending on the clock speed, and IBM manufactured them very conservatively. A couple of shops sold variable clock replacements, so you plugged in the replacement, twisted the speed pot until the system crashed, backed it down a titch, waited to see if it would crash again...
And many of us got twice the official clock speed on the computers.

Wonderful what you can gain when you have some understanding of what the actual technology around you is.
 

N4KVE

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They share a lot of internals and firmware code with TYT; TYT and CS DMR encryption uses the same proprietary algorithm.
While the various Chinese companies make their own hardware packages, it's common knowledge that the same consulting firm in China writes the CPS for all the Chinese radio mfrs except for Hytera, & Covalue. While the CS700 has the same CPS, Covalue went to a better company for the CS750, & CS800. That's why it's easy to drop a CS700 code plug into a MD380, or other CCR.
 
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