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Petitions for Reconsideration of Part 95 Personal Radio Services Rules Report and Order

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cralt

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Looks like President planned ahead as my new President Randy handheld has am and fm.
You must have the EU version. The US version is AM only.

From a technical standpoint I understand FM on CB would be way better. But from a practical standpoint I think its a bad idea. Its only going to divide an already small user base. I think the time when this could have been successful passed decades ago.
19AM is already a mess when the band opens and your trying to hear whats causing the traffic jams. Lets add FM on top of that too :rolleyes:
The only recent growth I have noted in CB is with the 4x4/Jeep world. And vendors like Midland have been working hard to snatch that market with GMRS. If the modulation wars start and new gear is needed I think most people will just jump ship to GMRS.

CB works for non-radio people because its so basic. Go to channel 4 and talk. That it.
No PL/DPL codes. No menus. No listening and trying to figure out AM or FM. I think the 2 groups of people who think CB needs changing are guys that sell radios and Hams. The typical CB user just wants to know what lane to be in or to yell up the trail that he is stuck.

If a guy wanted to get more in to the radio hobby and experimenting with different modes then there is all of ham radio to explore. Why limit yourself to just 440khz and 4 watts?
 

redbeard

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Now we'll need CB FM filters along with our FM Broadcast filters.

I remember my brother in law having a 100 Watt CB that had AM, FM and SSB. That was 30 years ago. I know it wasn't legal and I cannot remember what the brand name was.
I don't think FM means what you think it does. A CB FM filter for what? An FM BCB filter has a purpose, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it is FM.
 

jhooten

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FM is cleaner/clearer audio. It can sound better.
It also would technically make it possible to run things like CTCSS squelch. That would be pretty nice if you didn't want to make random contacts. Not sure if the current crop of FM capable CB's sold overseas support it, but it would be nice.

Not going to improve range, and probably won't handle skip as well as AM. That may be a benefit for some that just want better sounding local communications.

And most other countries permit it, and have for quite a while, so it makes sense for manufacturers. Not having to build separate or dumbed down products for the US market may help us see some different radios.


AND lightning crashes are reduced to almost nothing on FM. FM captures the strongest signal. Weaker signals don't cause heterodyne squeal like on AM. Since AM doesn't capture like FM you can still hear other signals on the channel, one of the reasons Aviation still uses AM.
 

JayMojave

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FM will be great on CB oh the repeater wars, the FM Capture gift, as used by all the Zoo repeaters in LA, Things are looking up, I am sure the Ham Bones will complain about it as usually, and the hits just get keep coming.

We use to have 11 meter CB repeaters in the San Fernando Valley, in Southern California. They worked great. I would be willing to make a set of cavities and tune them for such a effort.

Jay in the Great Mojave Desert
 

TomLine

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What about using FM digital mode over the CB band ? Would this be good or just make a bigger mess ? How about making channel 20 and above FM, and the original 23 AM ? (Just throwing spaghetti at the wall here I guess) . I like the propagation characteristics of the band for mobile use; it seems to hug over hills on the highway pretty good at only 4 watts. Would a different range work better and be practical on the road?
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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What about using FM digital mode over the CB band ? Would this be good or just make a bigger mess ? How about making channel 20 and above FM, and the original 23 AM ? (Just throwing spaghetti at the wall here I guess) . I like the propagation characteristics of the band for mobile use; it seems to hug over hills on the highway pretty good at only 4 watts. Would a different range work better and be practical on the road?

I would like to see FM Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum FM-FHSS. This is the technique used on some 900 MHz cordless phones and could be adopted easily to 27 MHz turning 40 channels into a few hundred hopping sequences (Talk Groups). It is not an encryption mode, it is an anti-jam technique so well suited to mix with AM CB.
 

mmckenna

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What about using FM digital mode over the CB band ? Would this be good or just make a bigger mess ? How about making channel 20 and above FM, and the original 23 AM ? (Just throwing spaghetti at the wall here I guess) . I like the propagation characteristics of the band for mobile use; it seems to hug over hills on the highway pretty good at only 4 watts. Would a different range work better and be practical on the road?


Well, digital isn't one of the options. And the battle over which digital mode to choose would lead to a mess. Last thing CB needs is to turn into the crapshow like amateur radio has with a mess of different/non-compatible digital modes.
Sure, digital would be nice, but probably better places to fight that battle than CB.

In my own personal experience, CB doesn't have the discipline needed for band plans like that. Sure, the Channel 6, Channel 38 guys do pretty well, but the rest of the CB radio crowd would not abide, unless it was hardcoded into the radios. Voluntary band plans barely work on amateur radio as is. I like the idea, but that spaghetti isn't going to stick to the wall. The spaghetti would more than likely hit the ceiling fan that's set on high and splatter all over the place.

I think GMRS is a great band, and I'm happy to see it picking up some steam. It may be a good option for you if random contact are not your primary goal. While it'll probably never be much more than it is right now, it's a better solution for some. It served me well for many years.
 

RichardKramer

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Why not leave the CB band the way it is with am/ssb and create a new civilian band for fm say from 30 - 32MHz since there isn't much use of that band at that low end except for military comms.
 

jhooten

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Why not leave the CB band the way it is with am/ssb and create a new civilian band for fm say from 30 - 32MHz since there isn't much use of that band at that low end except for military comms.

BUT, BUT, BUT Then I’d have to buy a new radio. Adding FM to the existing band would let those existing import radios be usable. (Matters not that they are not approved and put out 25 times the power allowed, they could be used on the existing band.)
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Why not leave the CB band the way it is with am/ssb and create a new civilian band for fm say from 30 - 32MHz since there isn't much use of that band at that low end except for military comms.

If you have a business need, it is pretty easy to license a Part 90 Itinerant wideband 100 Watt frequency like these:

-----------------------
27.49 Base or Mobile 10.
35.04 Base or Mobile 10.
43.04 Base or mobile 17.

(10) This frequency will be assigned only to stations used in itinerant operations, except within 56 km (35 miles) of Detroit, Mich., where it may be assigned for either itinerant or permanent area operations (i.e., general use).

(17) This frequency will be assigned only to stations used in itinerant operations.
--------------------------------------
You can find plenty of 100 watt FM wideband radios from Motorola Syntor X9000, Maratrak, Kenwood and Yaesu models. The Syntor radios will do encryption which is permitted in Part 90. Finding an antenna that will span all three would be difficult. I have Syntor X9000's and have decided to use 35.04 and 43.04 as the radio receiver will operate full spec at those channels.
 

prcguy

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I think its a long time coming and I welcome FM on CB. The band is currently under used and there is plenty of room for FM to coexist with AM and SSB. A loooong time ago with only 23 channels there was an agreement for ch 17 to be SSB only and that worked ok. You had a occasional "A Hole" that would purposely jam but for the most part SSB stayed on 17 and things worked out.

With 40 channels there was an agreement to leave 35 through 40 for SSB and over the years ch 38 has become the big SSB channel with occasional SSB spread across 35-40 when the skip is hot. Ch 6 and 11 are for brothers with big power, ch 19 is for truckers, around here and in many other areas ch 7 is mostly Spanish language. Most of the other channels are very under used so that leaves a lot of places for FM to work and not bother anyone.

I've "tested" FM on CB and it works great but with most if not all current import CBs being +/- 5KHz deviation FM and the new rules stating around +/- 2KHz deviation, there will be a problem with existing FM capable radios causing interference and problems compared to future legal FM CBs.
 

K6EEN

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"Specifically, we amend Section 95.971(a) of the Commission’s rules to permit CB Radio Service transmitters to transmit FM voice emissions along with AM."

"We note that the ±2 kHz limit is the current European standard for CB radios that use AM and FM transmissions, thereby facilitating equipment compatibility."

About $@#&*(!!! time.
About 30 years late. The USA CB service is frozen in time, late 70s to early 80s. FM was permissible in most other countries by the time the iron curtain fell in 1990. This just harmonizes the U.S. rules with what has been standardized in Europe for the past few decades. Hopefully Canada will follow suit immediately to harmonize this across the majority of North America.

I look forward to some of the AM/FM models from President and AnyTone (re-badged, maybe) becoming available in the U.S. Some support CTCSS/DPL tone boards. Not sure how well they will work at 2 kHz deviation.
 

chrismol1

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I'm diggin it. Maybe we can see some 26-54 FM out of band export radios cranked out based on modern chips these days
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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I'm diggin it. Maybe we can see some 26-54 FM out of band export radios cranked out based on modern chips these days

Yikes; I hope NOT. We don't need to see more Chinese crapola being marketed. Leave President alone so they can keep making radios that actually have well designed receivers, not some mystery chip connected to an SO239.
 
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