Proposal to FCC for VHF Low Band Channels on GMRS and FRS

[chrismol1]

Let me guess something, since the FCC pulled their plug on linked repeaters, they want flamethrower low band repeaters...300+ watts

 

[Don_Burke]

Start forfeiting amateur anything, and you can kiss it all goodbye. Get real, folks. Not an option.

It amuses me how folks are licensing B/ILT spectrum for personal use. That's not the purpose of the B/ILT radio service. The FCC needs to direct these people to get amateur licenses, and stop catering to the GMRS crowd. If people want to play high-power long distance radio for fun, we already have a service for that, and any cracker-jack box has a tech grade license in it these days.

Eventually, the B/ILT spectrum will be so crowded with nonsense personal crap that you won't be able to get a channel for a legitimate business anyway.

You mean like the loss of 11 meters meant the end of ham radio?

...or the loss of part of 220 meant the end of ham radio?

 

[Don_Burke]

Let me guess something, since the FCC pulled their plug on linked repeaters, they want flamethrower low band repeaters...300+ watts

I have been through the petition several times and I'm not sure they know what they want.

 

[kc2asb]

You mean like the loss of 11 meters meant the end of ham radio?

...or the loss of part of 220 meant the end of ham radio?

11 meters/CB has been a pipeline to amateur radio for decades, yet many hams still look down their noses at CB operators.

 

[K9KLC]

11 meters/CB has been a pipeline to amateur radio for decades, yet many hams still look down their noses at CB operators.

Guess I've been lucky, I've actually only met one or two in person that have that attitude, and frankly one is now on the CB band! LOL. When I had my shop, many hams came in as we worked on both CB and ham equipment, and truthfully a lot of those guys were fascinated by some of the stuff out there for CB. I'm sure there's the look down your nose mr legal eagle guys, but I know for a fact, a lot of ham transmitters were tuned well beyond 27.405 and 28.000 back then.

I guess one could almost compare it to the CCR radios being the pipeline and people looking down on those too. I have a good friend that his first radio was the UV5R and had he not had that he said, he would have never sunk more money into the hobby (ham radio) and believe me, he's sunk a bunch in now.

 

[Don_Burke]

One side benefit of this discussion for me has been finding out some channels are still licensed.

I had no idea that 27.430, 27.450, 27.470, 27.490, 27.510, and 27.530 are still considered valid. I would imagine the freebanders make them useless, but the licenses are there.

Another interesting note is that 27.235 is still licensed to a PW user, KRC578 in Amarillo, a license that dates back to at least the 1990s. I don't know if you can get a Part 90 radio for 27.235 AM. .

 

[kc2asb]

One side benefit of this discussion for me has been finding out some channels are still licensed.

I had no idea that 27.430, 27.450, 27.470, 27.490, 27.510, and 27.530 are still considered valid. I would imagine the freebanders make them useless, but the licenses are there.

27.490 is a business/intinerant frequency. Is that what the rest of them are allocated as? I have never heard anything but freebanders in this range.

Another interesting note is that 27.235 is still licensed to a PW user, KRC578 in Amarillo, a license that dates back to at least the 1990s. I don't know if you can get a Part 90 radio for 27.235 AM. .

Great question. If this frequency is still being used by Amarillo, it would be interesting to see what they are using for equipment. Export radios? Maybe they just keep renewing the license.

 

[nd5y]

That Amarillo license is probably just left over from the 1950s-1960s and keeps getting renewed. They are on a P25 P2 trunked system now.

The current list of industrial/business and public safety frequencies is at

Federal Register :: Request Access

www.ecfr.gov

and

Federal Register :: Request Access

www.ecfr.gov

You need to look at the "Limitations" column for each frequency or range and look up those in the "Explanation of assignment limitations" below the table.

 

[SigIntel8600]

11 meters/CB has been a pipeline to amateur radio for decades, yet many hams still look down their noses at CB operators.

Pass a 35 question test and suddenly they think they are radio gods that look down upon the dreaded chicken band. I know CB sideband operators and GMRS operators whose knowledge of antenna theory, station setup and operating skill put hams to shame. Just look at some the ridiculous questions posted by the radio gods in the amateur forums on this site.

 

[Don_Burke]

27.490 is a business/intinerant frequency. Is that what the rest of them are allocated as? I have never heard anything but freebanders in this range.

All the others in that group show as conventional IB or IK channels.

Great question. If this frequency is still being used by Amarillo, it would be interesting to see what they are using for equipment. Export radios? Maybe they just keep renewing the license.

They might be using CB radios. That is CB channel 24, which was a business channel often referred to as 22A before the expansion to 40.

The license record shows that the FCC keeps sending reminders for renewal. Perhaps some clerk is just paying the bills as they come in.

 

[Don_Burke]

That Amarillo license is probably just left over from the 1950s-1960s and keeps getting renewed. They are on a P25 P2 trunked system now.

The current list of industrial/business and public safety frequencies is at

Federal Register :: Request Access

www.ecfr.gov

and

Federal Register :: Request Access

www.ecfr.gov

You need to look at the "Limitations" column for each frequency or range and look up those in the "Explanation of assignment limitations" below the table.

I see that 27.555 is a valid business channel, although the ULS shows no licenses active or in history.

I suspect a clerk in Amarillo is just paying the bills as they come in.

 

[kc2asb]

I see that 27.555 is a valid business channel, although the ULS shows no licenses active or in history.

27.555 is also the USB calling channel for freebanders.

 

[EAFrizzle]

If you watch the 11 meter freeband on a waterfall, you'll notice lots of data bursts when propagation is running. Some is SCADA and other remote monitors, some is STANAG modes. Kinda funny to watch the military guys agitating the LATAM sidebanders.

 

[d119]

You mean like the loss of 11 meters meant the end of ham radio?

...or the loss of part of 220 meant the end of ham radio?

Don, that argument is invalid in more ways than one. Hear me out.

You know as well as I do that the "wireless climate" of 2025 is significantly different than it was in 1958 (11 meters becomes CB) or 1988 (220 lower half is reallocated).

We're talking about DEAD BANDS more or less. 95% less use than in those time periods. So YES, I think once the ball gets rolling on reallocation (IF it ever does, God forbid), you're looking at some SERIOUS PROBLEMS with the hobby. A little here today means a LOT there tomorrow in today's era of technology. Not to start an entirely different line of nonsense, but if you think the ARRL is going to defend ham spectrum like they did back in the day, well, yeah.

You're comparing vastly different time periods, vastly different political, cultural, and most importantly, technological eras. Come on, man.

 

[MTS2000des]

What my fellow west coast pimp said. The bottom line is: amateur radio has never been under greater threat of losing spectrum than ever. Spectrum that are golden swaths. The sad ham and elitists that insist on doing "ham style" ops on other services only feed the justification to water down or eliminate the service altogether. The GMRS 8 channel army with illegally linked repeaters, the "I want my personal radio service to mirror part 97 but be license free/by rule" only fan the flames.

 

[d119]

What my fellow west coast pimp said. The bottom line is: amateur radio has never been under greater threat of losing spectrum than ever. Spectrum that are golden swaths. The sad ham and elitists that insist on doing "ham style" ops on other services only feed the justification to water down or eliminate the service altogether. The GMRS 8 channel army with illegally linked repeaters, the "I want my personal radio service to mirror part 97 but be license free/by rule" only fan the flames.

 

[kc2asb]

Don, that argument is invalid in more ways than one. Hear me out.

You know as well as I do that the "wireless climate" of 2025 is significantly different than it was in 1958 (11 meters becomes CB) or 1988 (220 lower half is reallocated).

We're talking about DEAD BANDS more or less. 95% less use than in those time periods. So YES, I think once the ball gets rolling on reallocation (IF it ever does, God forbid), you're looking at some SERIOUS PROBLEMS with the hobby. A little here today means a LOT there tomorrow in today's era of technology. Not to start an entirely different line of nonsense, but if you think the ARRL is going to defend ham spectrum like they did back in the day, well, yeah.

You're comparing vastly different time periods, vastly different political, cultural, and most importantly, technological eras. Come on, man.

Hard to argue with anything you have written here. Granted, usage of a particular band in one region is not necessarily typical of other regions. With spectrum at a premium, especially on VHF-high and UHF, we are at risk of losing what we don't use sufficiently. Hams make a lot of noise when another party is threatening to encroach on part of their spectrum, but more of that noise needs to be on the air!

 

[d119]

Hard to argue with anything you have written here. Granted, usage of a particular band in one region is not necessarily typical of other regions. With spectrum at a premium, especially on VHF-high and UHF, we are at risk of losing what we don't use sufficiently. Hams make a lot of noise when another party is threatening to encroach on part of their spectrum, but more of that noise needs to be on the air!

Agreed. And then you get ignorant corporations that do an FCC license search in the amateur bands, see "no licensees", and put in a request for an experimental license thinking it's empty spectrum.

I could go on and on about this, but I'll spare you all the rhetoric. This time. Unless someone pisses me off. Which has been known to happen. A lot.

@MTS2000des God bless ya, and keep ya' game tight, hear playa? We got that "Blue A" now at your nonverbal suggestion, set crippin'.

 

[Don_Burke]

Don, that argument is invalid in more ways than one. Hear me out.

You know as well as I do that the "wireless climate" of 2025 is significantly different than it was in 1958 (11 meters becomes CB) or 1988 (220 lower half is reallocated).

We're talking about DEAD BANDS more or less. 95% less use than in those time periods. So YES, I think once the ball gets rolling on reallocation (IF it ever does, God forbid), you're looking at some SERIOUS PROBLEMS with the hobby. A little here today means a LOT there tomorrow in today's era of technology. Not to start an entirely different line of nonsense, but if you think the ARRL is going to defend ham spectrum like they did back in the day, well, yeah.

You're comparing vastly different time periods, vastly different political, cultural, and most importantly, technological eras. Come on, man.

You're making predictions based on your own baseless predictions.

Since the loss of 11 meters, which was a particularly crappy ham band, amateur radio has lost a portion of one band and gained three HF bands.

Are you _really_ trying to make an argument that unused spectrum should remain unused to avoid a "domino effect" that you can show no evidence of?

The only thing I can see that is even remotely like a domino effect was the reallocation of UHF TV channels, and that actually worked out as a positive for the TV broadcasting industry.

Overall, the wireless industry is the only bunch with cash and clout to take channels and they don't want anything below 600 MHz anyway.

I expect the petition that this thread is about to be tossed out in seconds. Six meters isn't going anywhere any time soon.

 

[Don_Burke]

What my fellow west coast pimp said. The bottom line is: amateur radio has never been under greater threat of losing spectrum than ever. Spectrum that are golden swaths. The sad ham and elitists that insist on doing "ham style" ops on other services only feed the justification to water down or eliminate the service altogether. The GMRS 8 channel army with illegally linked repeaters, the "I want my personal radio service to mirror part 97 but be license free/by rule" only fan the flames.

The petition at hand is not looking for reallocation of any ham frequencies.

I expect the opponents of the petition will find powerful allies in the business radio manufacturers. They made MURS just about unuseable and I expect them to find no challenge in squashing this.

...and then we add in that VHF low is not going to do what the proponents want it to do.

If by some miracle this results in another Part 95 band, I would not be surprised if the band reverts to business use in less than 30 years.