Transmitting outside the ham bands

[kny2xb]

Most of my Part 90 LMR radios are loaded with receive frequencies for all my local police, fire CHP, etc, but no transmit freqs programmed. Not because of the rule cited above, I just don't want someone else getting a hold of my radios and causing any problems.

I have FRS 467.6375 MHz at micro power programmed in for transmit on frequencies that I want to receive only, mainly NOAA & the rail freqs
MY DJ-MD5T will transmit at 0.2 watts

That's in addition to having the TX disabled on those channels

 

[kayn1n32008]

No, what I said is that the radio would be legal to use in another county, with a reciprocal license, on their amateur frequencies that would be accessible with a modified radio (that was originally sold in the USA) if the band plan was different.

An example of this is in France where voice repeaters reside in the 430.XXX spectrum.

France Amateur Radio Repeaters

Hope this clears up my original reply.

Lmao. Any radio I have bought in NA that has UHF, transmitted just fine 430-450MHz with out doing any mods.

US hams have access to the most 70cm spectrum in most areas 420-450MHz. Of course this excludes North of line A, east of line C in Alaska and where ever there is UHF military radar. Every were else is either 430-450Mhz or 430-440MHz

 

[W4AXW]

I used to blame it on the nationwide 55 MPH speed limit that was forced on drivers in the US in the 1970s. I believed that turned us into a nation of scofflaws.

Then I learned more about the Volstead Act (Prohibition). The word "scofflaw" dates back to Prohibition.

How about The Whiskey Rebellion? During the Washington administration. Human nature doesn't really change, only the soundbites do.

7 3

 

[hill]

, if I grab the radio and squeeze the mic while it is in scan I don't want to accidentally stop on and throw my callsign out on some PS freq. Man, I have heard that happen to other people more than a few times.

If you use commerical radios this will most likely never occur. They can be set up to always transmit on the selected channel regardless which ever other frequency becomes active.

All my Kenwood radios are set up to for the selected channel to be the revert and priority one. This way I know that won't miss too much on the selected channel and when key up it be on the right channel.

 

[kc8jwt]

Years ago I was a member of RACES in the county I lived in. We were very fortunate as amateur's to have the support of the EMS/EMA director. After a bit of time in the org, he "retired" as EMS director and was only the EMA director. The replacement EMS director was supportive of us as well. Eventually both of them became licensed amateurs.

When the EMS/EMA position split, the EMA office moved across the street to the new office, we had the entire 3rd floor of the building and we had a nice room that was turned into a radio room. We also had a mobile radio unit as well. Our radio room in the EMA office had our 2M/440 radios, one for voice and one for packet. and then we had a HF radio setup as well. We also had radios programed in the room for all of the public safety frequencies in the county and towards the end of me in org, we had a full EMS dispatch station in the radio room as a backup to the primary EMS dispatch. We also had a radio for the first iteration of the Ohio MARCS system. The "bus" was similar to our radio room setup minus the HF. One side was amateur equipment and the other side was for public safety.

As RACES members, we carried EMS/EMA unit numbers. When activated we were authorized to use the EMS/EMA frequencies. None of us modified our amateur radios for use on those frequencies. There was a few times that I was activated that I had a EMA radio to use on the EMA frequency. I never touched it. We passed all of our traffic on 2M and if we wanted a little privacy from those that wanted to listen to us on scanners, we would pass the more sensitive traffic on packet radio.

We were a group that we knew what we were capable of but we also knew what our role was and not to get in the way. Those hams that want to self-deploy and in general get in the road give the rest of those who do want to help a bad name. I know that when I was deployed to provide comms, I'd show up, introduce myself to the IC and tell them why I was there and then tell them I was going to get out of the way and I would be available if they needed any comms outside of their normal comms and make myself one with the wall. We were appreciated that we didn't make a nuisance of ourselves and get in the road. I think some of the amateurs that were licensed in the past 10 years suffer from the entitlement mentality and that's the problem.

 

[alcahuete]

Here is another 'rule' worth noting
47CFR 90.427b Precautions against unauthorized operations.
(b) Except for frequencies used in accordance with 90.417, no person shall program into a transmitter frequencies for which the license using the transmitter is not authorized.
(43FR54791, Nov. 22, 1978, as amended at 52 FR 47570, Dec. 15, 1987)

You have to remember though, that only applies to Part 90. This does not apply to hams at all, as they have no authorization to operate under Part 90 rules in the first place. It would be no different than trying to hold a Part 90 user accountable to Part 97 regulations.

My understanding though is that this guy does have some Part 90 business, so it would apply to him.

 

[mmckenna]

My understanding though is that this guy does have some Part 90 business, so it would apply to him.

It would.
Which is why I find it interesting that the FCC clearly called him out with his amateur radio license call sign. As the FCC often does in these cases, they use them to set an example. In this case, I believe their intent is to make it clear to -all- amateur radio operators that their license only gives them permission to use amateur radio frequencies and in no way gives permission, under any circumstances, permission to operate outside those limitations.

In other words, I think they have made it exceedingly clear.

Unfortunately, there are those that will not listen/learn/comply with the requirements and will do whatever they want. None of us are the "radio police" and can't enforce things.
But we can certainly enjoy it when the FCC does...

 

[mmckenna]

We were appreciated that we didn't make a nuisance of ourselves and get in the road.

That's the attitude that needs to prevail.
Knowing when to stay out of the way and keep ones mouth shut is important. Getting in the way of the professionals never helps and is not welcome.

I think some of the amateurs that were licensed in the past 10 years suffer from the entitlement mentality and that's the problem.

I agree. And I feel we can link some of that back to the ARRL and the "when all else fails" campaign.

 

[k6cpo]

I dont think 90.407 applies her at all in no way...
he said (taken from 1st news article in the beginning):

"[A]t no time was I trying to disturb any other communications or air traffic. I was honestly just giving them information I had since I have been working on the butte since the early 90's . . . " wrote Frawley in his October 15, 2021 response to a Letter of Inquiry from FCC Special Counsel Laura Smith.

He was apparently not in danger, and no imminent life or death situation.

He couldn't have passed this information along by phone?

 

[wd9ewk]

Lmao. Any radio I have bought in NA that has UHF, transmitted just fine 430-450MHz with out doing any mods.

US hams have access to the most 70cm spectrum in most areas 420-450MHz. Of course this excludes North of line A, east of line C in Alaska and where ever there is UHF military radar. Every were else is either 430-450Mhz or 430-440MHz

Lots of older Icom/Kenwood (and also Standard) HTs or mobiles with 70cm used to have TX limited to either 438-450 MHz or 440-450 MHz. Why this was, I don't know. Sometime in the 2000s, HTs and mobiles on 70cm started to come with TX at 430-450 MHz. Although the 70cm band in the US (in most places) goes down to 420 MHz, I haven't run into any need to transmit in the 420-430 MHz range, so not having that available isn't a big deal for me.

This was not only an issue with hams traveling from the US to other countries (including Mexico, in the past) with these radios, but also for those using those radios here in the US with satellites where the uplink (TX) was at 435-438 MHz. My old Icom IC-W32A 2m/70cm HT would only transmit on 70cm at 440-450 MHz from the factory. The modification to expand the TX (remove a diode, then reset CPU) opened up TX on both bands well beyond the ham bands, but it was the only way to get TX down to the 435-438 MHz range for the satellites. And I don't worry about trying to transmit outside the 2m & 70cm amateur bands with it.

73.

 

[davidgcet]

if you came upon an officer or public safety person injured in a wreck then yes it would be permissible to use their radio to contact dispatch. BUT if there is any other means to reasonably contact them then you must use that, or at least that was always my understanding. When i was still in 2 way i had basically all public safety in my radios. for conventional systems the only time i would TX was when we were working on that repeater or base. for trunked systems we had our own test TG that did not go to the consoles, but if need be i could switch to their TG and talk direct to them. as stated above this was almost always done AFTER a phone call making sure i was clear to test. But also one local county would call me direct on the radio before they called our office for a problem. No matter that i would tell them if they had an issue then most likely i would be able to use the radio to communicate anyway. LOL

ETA: i was sysadmin for the 2 local trunk systems and had permission from each agency to have their TG on the local and the state system. i had saved templates that i could throw on to limit what they could even pull up when i gave one out as a loaner or demo unit since i did not want to run the risk of someone swapping zones or something and talking on another agency. plus a lot of the state systems had certain TG tx inhibited in the ASK the state gave me. so even if i wanted to tx the limited key would not allow it.

 

[Echo4Thirty]

Please elaborate. If I own a radio that is capable of receiving and transmitting in the amateur radio bands, what is the legitimate purpose for performing a so-called "MARS mod" on the radio if all the modification does is make it so the radio can transmit outside the amateur radio bands? If it's a illegal for me, with my amateur radio license, to transmit outside the amateur radio bands, why do I need a radio that can do so?

I have a few transverters that require me to generate RF outside of the Part 97 bands. For example, my 220 transverter requires an IF of 28-31 MHz to cover the entire band and my 33cm one requires 143-169 MHz to cover 902-928. I had to mars/cap my equipment to be able to generate those LO frequencies.

 

[k7ng]

I used to be a comm tech for one of the Federal natural resource agencies (but I retired from that job and have a good one now), and I must have spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of road miles trying to find out where unauthorized transmissions were coming from, with terrible percentage of success. There have been FCC actions against commercial entities who seemed to have no regard for who was authorized to use various frequencies... but it still happens. Not to say that programming unauthorized frequencies or modifying radios is solely done by commercial operations. In NV there seemed to be a continuing problem with 'off-roaders' having and using radios programmed for whatever frequencies. One memorable event was when one of our tac channels had two yahoos blabbering continuously about their routes and meetups, and when a well-meaning member of the agency asked "Who are you, do you need assistance?" - and the reply was "Go the ***** away, I paid for this channel!"

Or one ham in who thought it was OK to make a test call on one of our repeaters (using his callsign). I looked up who he was and made a polite phone call, one ham to another. He seemed to think that a single test 'just to make sure the radio was working on that channel in case I need it' would be OK. I had to explain it was NOT OK and if it happened again I'd be dialing a different phone number. Perhaps it wasn't the right thing to do, I don't know, but that was the ONLY time I did that, and hopefully it was the only time the dipstick did something that stupid.


"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity - and I'm not too sure about the universe part."
- Albert Einstein -

 

[mmckenna]

Perhaps it wasn't the right thing to do, I don't know, but that was the ONLY time I did that, and hopefully it was the only time the dipstick did something that stupid.

Absolutely the right thing to do. It's apparent that there's some percentage of the hobby that doesn't understand and won't get the message any other way.

In NV there seemed to be a continuing problem with 'off-roaders' having and using radios programmed for whatever frequencies. One memorable event was when one of our tac channels had two yahoos blabbering continuously about their routes and meetups, and when a well-meaning member of the agency asked "Who are you, do you need assistance?" - and the reply was "Go the ***** away, I paid for this channel!"

I've run into that, also.

There are a few companies that will sell radios pre-loaded with "Off Road" frequencies. Zero explanation about licensing/locations. They've been spoken to before, but it doesn't seem to work, nor impact all the existing radios out there in the hands of consumers.

The only bright side of this is that most have such awful installations that their range is limited.

Trying to discuss licensing with them is pointless. You'll get the "I paid for this channel" answer every time.

 

[AK9R]

There are a few companies that will sell radios pre-loaded with "Off Road" frequencies.

There are also companies are also selling modified amateur radio transceivers, 50-watt Japanese mobiles, not 5-watt CCRs, to the off-road community and telling them that they are OK to use on "off-road" frequencies.

 

[W2JGA]

There are also companies are also selling modified amateur radio transceivers, 50-watt Japanese mobiles, not 5-watt CCRs, to the off-road community and telling them that they are OK to use on "off-road" frequencies.

How much are those 'off road' frequencies? I need a hunr'd of dem fer ma jeep!

 

[nd5y]

How much are those 'off road' frequencies?

Ask RacingRadios.com.
If I remember correctly a few years ago the FCC busted them, or a similar business, for that so their prices may have increased.

 

[W2JGA]

I'm really curious as to why someone got angry over my comment?

 

[KK4JUG]

I'm really curious as to why someone got angry over my comment?

Were they angry about your comment or just about subject matter in general?

 

[W2JGA]

Were they angry about your comment or just about subject matter in general?

I asked in a sarcastic fashion about what those frequencies cost, maybe he's affiliated with the shop that the FCC spanked?