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Radio rental license?

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jelimoore

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Do I need a special license from the FCC to rent radios? I already have a statewide itinerant license. I did some googling and only came up with a bunch of references to outdated parts of 47 CFR.
 

alcahuete

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Most places, you are covered under the rental company's license and use their frequencies. Are rental companies going to program radios to use your frequencies? Maybe, maybe not.
 

jelimoore

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Most places, you are covered under the rental company's license and use their frequencies. Are rental companies going to program radios to use your frequencies? Maybe, maybe not.
Sorry, should've clarified, do I need a special license to rent out my radio fleet? I know you are covered by the system owner if you are the renter, but I'm thinking of this from a perspective of where I am charging other people to use my radios/frequencies for whatever event they want to do.
 

prcguy

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I got licensed in the early 80s to rent out time on my commercial mountain top repeaters and I had to get a "common carrier" license. I don't remember the details but I recommended frequency pairs to my local coordinator, told them I intend to lease repeater time and want my customers to operate under my license, and the coordinator took care of everything. For $$ of course.
 

jelimoore

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I got licensed in the early 80s to rent out time on my commercial mountain top repeaters and I had to get a "common carrier" license. I don't remember the details but I recommended frequency pairs to my local coordinator, told them I intend to lease repeater time and want my customers to operate under my license, and the coordinator took care of everything. For $$ of course.
Wow, common carrier looks like a lot of money and paperwork. I'll probably skip on the radios for rental for now.
 

alcahuete

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Sorry, should've clarified, do I need a special license to rent out my radio fleet? I know you are covered by the system owner if you are the renter, but I'm thinking of this from a perspective of where I am charging other people to use my radios/frequencies for whatever event they want to do.

It's all good. Yeah...what prcguy is saying sounds about right. I don't know the specifics, but your license would just cover you and people under your business or organization, as far as I recall. It wouldn't cover rentals.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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I think you can get a regular part 90 license and state the intent in the eligibility section. Just pull up some licenses of known radio rental outfits. You definitely don't want to be a common carrier as the paperwork and reporting is daunting.
 

mmckenna

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I do believe that the Common Carrier stuff is if you are running a repeater.

If you are just going to use the itinerant channels in simplex mode, you won't need that. Looks like you do need to change your station class to MO6, though.

However, your license should reflect your business need, will need to include the correct number of mobile stations and generally be accurate to reflect the usage.
Making sure that those who are renting your radios are aware of the shared nature of itinerant channels would be wise.

And if you haven't rented out your radios before, make sure you grasp the amount of damage they'll endure. They'll get whipped like rented mules and sustain a fair amount of damage. You'll want robust radios for this sort of stuff. Consider that many antennas, chargers, speaker mics, belt clips and spare batteries will get damaged or just downright disappear in this sort of application.
 

jelimoore

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I do believe that the Common Carrier stuff is if you are running a repeater.

If you are just going to use the itinerant channels in simplex mode, you won't need that. Looks like you do need to change your station class to MO6, though.

However, your license should reflect your business need, will need to include the correct number of mobile stations and generally be accurate to reflect the usage.
Making sure that those who are renting your radios are aware of the shared nature of itinerant channels would be wise.

And if you haven't rented out your radios before, make sure you grasp the amount of damage they'll endure. They'll get whipped like rented mules and sustain a fair amount of damage. You'll want robust radios for this sort of stuff. Consider that many antennas, chargers, speaker mics, belt clips and spare batteries will get damaged or just downright disappear in this sort of application.

Great, just got the license a couple weeks ago. I'll probably wait to file an amendment until there's actually a need for it (hoping they won't charge for the amendment). Regarding abuse, trust me I'm well aware of how these get beat up. The main use of these would to be "rented" to some students from my old high school who do back office/AV stuff for events there. The school has a trbo system there but are understandably not super happy with non staff on their system - I tried asking when I was there a year ago. I have a bunch of trbo radios around and figured they could serve some use when I'm not using them. I know them personally and they've borrowed stuff from me before so I know how they treat stuff and that 95% of the time it will all come back in one piece.
 

prcguy

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I don't think you can rent radios and allow customers to use your license unless you are a common carrier. Thinking back I remember filling out some initial paperwork on my long term air time rentals but not for some of the temporary users and at one point I stopped reporting the users. I was still able to renew the license and I operated for quite some time leasing repeater air time in So Cal.

I think you can get a regular part 90 license and state the intent in the eligibility section. Just pull up some licenses of known radio rental outfits. You definitely don't want to be a common carrier as the paperwork and reporting is daunting.
 

jelimoore

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I don't think you can rent radios and allow customers to use your license unless you are a common carrier. Thinking back I remember filling out some initial paperwork on my long term air time rentals but not for some of the temporary users and at one point I stopped reporting the users. I was still able to renew the license and I operated for quite some time leasing repeater air time in So Cal.

Just by doing some research, I think I would need a private/contract carrier designation rather than common carrier. Common carrier is meant more for cell companies that are selling to the general public versus a contract carrier which is a limited number of customers.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Just by doing some research, I think I would need a private/contract carrier designation rather than common carrier. Common carrier is meant more for cell companies that are selling to the general public versus a contract carrier which is a limited number of customers.
I would be curious as to what leads you to that conclusion. Is there an FCC registration database of private carrier licenses? I am seeing a lot of 90.35 a 1 type eligibility when I look at rental companies.
 

jelimoore

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I would be curious as to what leads you to that conclusion. Is there an FCC registration database of private carrier licenses? I am seeing a lot of 90.35 a 1 type eligibility when I look at rental companies.
I take that back, I honestly have no clue where I found that. Disregard. Common carrier would be what's applicable here.
 

jelimoore

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Its best to contact a frequency coordinator, tell them what you want to do and they will tell you what you need.
Figured as much but figured I'd ask in case there was no need. I can just go to any coordinator for my band, doesn't have to be necessarily the closest right?
 
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