Best FCC License Type

[hohman79]

I’m contemplating obtaining an FCC license with the intention of renting radios. In speaking with the FCC they recommended an Itinerant Operation license. My concern with this type of license is the frequencies are shared so I’m wondering what the chances are that we will run into interference issues when using the radios in a large metropolitan area.

In doing some preliminary research I noticed others are using G industrial business pool conventional. Are there any limitations to the number of users on each type of license? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of license type?

 

[KevinC]

All frequencies are shared, whether or not you get interference will depend on many factors.

 

[mmckenna]

Itinerant licensing does not require frequency coordination. That will save you some money and make it easier to use the radios over a much wider area.

If you go with regular pool licenses, the FCC will require frequency coordination, that can get costly as you'll pay a coordinator a price per frequency. Even then, you won't get 'private' frequencies.

You can go either way, just depends on how much money you want to spend. There will always be a risk of interference, however that risk will be higher on the itinerants than the pool frequencies.

Properly set up radios will help reduce the impact of co-channel users.

Channel loading is a completely different thing, and won't apply for what you are doing.

 

[ecps92]

Itinerant licensing does not require frequency coordination. That will save you some money and make it easier to use the radios over a much wider area.

If you go with regular pool licenses, the FCC will require frequency coordination, that can get costly as you'll pay a coordinator a price per frequency. Even then, you won't get 'private' frequencies.

You can go either way, just depends on how much money you want to spend. There will always be a risk of interference, however that risk will be higher on the itinerants than the pool frequencies.

Properly set up radios will help reduce the impact of co-channel users.

Channel loading is a completely different thing, and won't apply for what you are doing.

and if Itinerant, your Operation will 90% of the time for large rental events, be sharing with the other attendees (sales, parking)
best to get a few non itinerant pairs, but as you move around you never know who might be running a High Power near-by repeater

YMMV

 

[hohman79]

and if Itinerant, your Operation will 90% of the time for large rental events, be sharing with the other attendees (sales, parking)
best to get a few non itinerant pairs, but as you move around you never know who might be running a High Power near-by repeater

YMMV

thanks when you say non-itinerant pairs do you mean a few pooled conventional?

 

[hohman79]

Itinerant licensing does not require frequency coordination. That will save you some money and make it easier to use the radios over a much wider area.

If you go with regular pool licenses, the FCC will require frequency coordination, that can get costly as you'll pay a coordinator a price per frequency. Even then, you won't get 'private' frequencies.

You can go either way, just depends on how much money you want to spend. There will always be a risk of interference, however that risk will be higher on the itinerants than the pool frequencies.

Properly set up radios will help reduce the impact of co-channel users.

Channel loading is a completely different thing, and won't apply for what you are doing.

Curious If I needed 8 pool frequencies what would the cost be for the frequency coordination? What additional costs would there be to maintain the license etc? thank you for all of this valuable information I truly appreciate your help here

 

[mmckenna]

Curious If I needed 8 pool frequencies what would the cost be for the frequency coordination? What additional costs would there be to maintain the license etc? thank you for all of this valuable information I truly appreciate your help here

Depends on how you want to do this.

The paperwork for the frequency coordination requires some specific knowledge of the technology involved. If you haven't done it before, and are not well versed in this industry, you'll want help. Same with the FCC license, it's worth the money to have the coordinator file the license for you.

Since you'll need to be buying a bunch of appropriate Part 90 approved radios from a reputable dealer, it may be something to negotiate as part of the purchase.

Last couple of frequencies I had coordinated (earlier this year) ran $150 each, and that included them filing the FCC license paperwork. Because of who I work for, I do not have to pay FCC fees on our license. You will, and I think it's $105. Don't forget renewal every 10 years...

 

[ecps92]

thanks when you say non-itinerant pairs do you mean a few pooled conventional?

Any IG/IB frequencies would work, especially of no Repeater concentrate on the 12.5 kHz ones, less chance of being near a repeater

 

[RadioGuy7268]

You did not mention the area where you plan to rent your radios (and/or airtime). You also didn't mention if you had a specific frequency range in mind for your radios. UHF is the standard for a general purpose portable radio, but as you are finding out, there's some balance between popularity & usefulness.

If you just plan to operate locally, and/or have a repeater that will be at a continuously fixed location, then it's a pretty straight forward operation to just go ahead with an FB6 Private Carrier. You still won't have exclusivity, but at least you can pick your pair.

If you plan to operate in simplex mode at different geographic locations, and you won't need a repeater, again it's fairly simple & straight forward. As you were told, itinerants are the answer for true nationwide use, but yes - you will be sharing the frequencies with other users. Hard to give/get exclusivity when you don't know where someone will be operating. Spectrum would get really scarce if everyone had an exclusive channel across all 50 states, but only needed to actually operate in 1 small area of 1 state.

If sharing is not what you want, but simplex is what you plan to use, then consider something like a DTR radio with 900 MHz spread spectrum operation. You will have privacy, you will have good (probably even better than good) simplex coverage, but you won't work and play with other (conventional UHF/VHF) radio users. You also won't have the option to use a repeater. (Yeah, we know about Cane Wireless and their DRX repeaters - it's not really practical for wide area repeaters in a conventional sense). You also don't need to worry about anything with FCC licensing for 900 MHz ISM radios.

If you want to have nationwide rentals with UHF repeater operation, and do it on an occasional basis, you have a much tougher task. NASCAR teams do it by setting up specific licensed locations at each of the different tracks where they practice and race. Great if you know where you are going to be, and where those locations will be in advance, year after year. Not so good for ad-hoc events that you need to set up with just a few weeks notice.

The good news for ad-hoc events is that FCC Licenses can be modified quicker than ever, it just becomes another step in the setup process, and someone has to pay for each new location.

 

[speedway_navigator]

When I ran the technical side of Bearcom's rental group we used an Optocom scanner at the event site about a month in advance to get a list of freqs and amount of airtime. I would pull the data after the first day and whittle it down for the next day, then form a final list and scan what I thought would be my repeater pairs after running an intermod study on that list.

This really helped in places like Long Beach for the grand prix, Hollyweird for the Oscars and ESPY, etc.
The only time I got nailed with a co-channel user was in Vegas at the NBA all star game. I fired up the repeaters and withing minutes of scanning our channels heard 'boom out', a few seconds of silence, then 'stop', then more boom commands, all lasting under 2 seconds.

The scanner took about 5 seconds to do my final list sample, it turned out this was a crane operator on simplex on the input side to my repeater and of course they had our CTCSS tone. We reprogrammed over 200 radios with a backup repeater.

While simplex may work well during a test with no crowd, I have seen places like Bonnaroo where simplex failed once the crowd showed up and all the other RF being used onsite turned on. TV uses 450-451 and 455-456 continuous duty TX so that can lead to desense on industrial business UHF freqs. They use yagis so that increases their signal level vs your omni antennas.

 

[mrsvensven]

You didn't mention the most important thing. Will you always be operating in the same area, or will you be moving all over the place (statewide, narionwide, etc)?

Often, itinerant licenses tend to be for statewide or nationwide use. The frequencies are shared/reused and you must make sure nobody else is using them first. It's more like the wild west with less rules.

The fixed licenses allow use of one or more specific frequencies, and coordination ensures that no other users are right nearby (although it's still technically shared as others have mentioned). You will be licensed to use the radios at one or more specific locatons. For permenant infrastructure (a base radio or repeater), your license will specify the coordinates, transmit power, and antenna height/gain. For temporary infrastructure or portable/mobile radios, you will license an area that is defined as a circle with a certain radius around a fixed point. You will pay for coordination per frequency and per location, so it will add up if you have several repeater locations or several frequencies.

 

[hohman79]

You did not mention the area where you plan to rent your radios (and/or airtime). You also didn't mention if you had a specific frequency range in mind for your radios. UHF is the standard for a general purpose portable radio, but as you are finding out, there's some balance between popularity & usefulness.

If you just plan to operate locally, and/or have a repeater that will be at a continuously fixed location, then it's a pretty straight forward operation to just go ahead with an FB6 Private Carrier. You still won't have exclusivity, but at least you can pick your pair.

If you plan to operate in simplex mode at different geographic locations, and you won't need a repeater, again it's fairly simple & straight forward. As you were told, itinerants are the answer for true nationwide use, but yes - you will be sharing the frequencies with other users. Hard to give/get exclusivity when you don't know where someone will be operating. Spectrum would get really scarce if everyone had an exclusive channel across all 50 states, but only needed to actually operate in 1 small area of 1 state.

If sharing is not what you want, but simplex is what you plan to use, then consider something like a DTR radio with 900 MHz spread spectrum operation. You will have privacy, you will have good (probably even better than good) simplex coverage, but you won't work and play with other (conventional UHF/VHF) radio users. You also won't have the option to use a repeater. (Yeah, we know about Cane Wireless and their DRX repeaters - it's not really practical for wide area repeaters in a conventional sense). You also don't need to worry about anything with FCC licensing for 900 MHz ISM radios.

If you want to have nationwide rentals with UHF repeater operation, and do it on an occasional basis, you have a much tougher task. NASCAR teams do it by setting up specific licensed locations at each of the different tracks where they practice and race. Great if you know where you are going to be, and where those locations will be in advance, year after year. Not so good for ad-hoc events that you need to set up with just a few weeks notice.

The good news for ad-hoc events is that FCC Licenses can be modified quicker than ever, it just becomes another step in the setup process, and someone has to pay for each new location.

with the 900 MHz ISM radios, how far can you communicate before you have an issue? 2000 feet line of sight?

 

[RadioGuy7268]

Outdoors, it's not unusual to see a mile or more before you run into issues. Like all radios, actual distance will depend on many things (indoors, outdoors, construction of buildings, etc.) but generally, the 900 MHz radios using Spread Spectrum technology are very forgiving, and will match up to nearly any other 4 or 5 watt radio -even though ISM 900 MHz is just 1 watt. In my experience, they're about the best simplex coverage option available for indoor use. They're also very good for battery life.

Where they fall short is the ability to converse with other existing radio user groups on VHF/UHF.