Why not a Petition for Rulemaking to allow Part 90 Radios for GMRS?

[Dantian]

That's a good suggestion. I wonder if any of them monitor this forum and might express a view here.

Well you can find them by examining the comments filed on the existing GMRS NPRM, as they always, or should always, identify themselves and their addresses. You would write to them with your proposal and ask for a letter of endorsement to be included with your petition.

In the alternative they could file comments after -- and if -- your petition is granted a RM number and placed on Public Notice. However, the pre-endorsement would encourage the FCC not to sit on it, by demonstrating that considerable numbers of licensees want this, and they are organized, and they might write their Congresspersons ...

The petition might actually prompt the FCC to think carefully about GMRS and make some actual statements about it that are connected to reality, rather than merely proposing to drop the licenses and other rules because in their view GMRS is not as good as cellular phones (which was the point they made in the NPRM).

 

[Project25_MASTR]

The owner of a GMRS repeater must have a GMRS license. If he doesn't, the repeater transmitter would be unlicensed therefore illegal.

I was not aware that Part 95A requires a licensed control operator because it actually doesn't. All the rules actually say is that a repeater need not ID (which would require a valid license) if traffic going through it is properly IDed (no control operator). So there is actually nothing that says one needs a license to own an on the air repeater as long as the owner isn't using it without a license.

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[bill4long]

So there is actually nothing that says one needs a license to own an on the air repeater as long as the owner isn't using it without a license.

You are mistaken:

95.1 The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS). (a) The GMRS is a land mobile radio service available to persons for short distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of licensees and their immediate family members. Each licensee manages a system consisting of one or more stations.

95.3 License required. Before any station transmits on any channel authorized in the GMRS from any point (a geographical location) within or over the territorial limits of any area where radio services are regulated by the FCC, the responsible party must obtain a license (a written authorization from the FCC for a GMRS system).

95.29 Channels available...(a) For a base station, fixed station, mobile station, or repeater station (a GMRS station that simultaneously retransmits the transmission of another GMRS station on a different channel or channels), the licensee of the GMRS system must select the transmitting channels or channel pairs (see § 95.7(a) of this part) for the stations in the GMRS system from the following 462 MHz channels:... (b) For a mobile station, control station, or fixed station operated in the duplex mode, the following 467 MHz channels may be used only to transmit communications through a repeater station and for remotely controlling a repeater station. The licensee of the GMRS system must select the transmitting channels or channel pairs (see § 95.7(a) of this part) for the stations operated in the duplex [Ed: repeater] mode, from the following 467 MHz channels"

By the above, we see that a GMRS "system" managed by a "licensee" who is the "responsible party" that consists of one of more "stations". Repeaters are clearly called "GMRS stations" within such a "system."

 

[Dantian]

As I read them, 95.3 and 95.33 say the repeater needs a licensee, which in effect makes the station licensed.

It would seem hard to argue that the repeater owner is not the party responsible for it (95.3); and if the repeater is shared, the repeater must have its own licensee (95.33).

The rule doesn't appear to contemplate sharing of a station that does not have a specific person who is the licensee (whom the FCC calls "the" licensee), even if others sharing it are licensed.

The Part 90 community repeater concept does not require the radio dealer to have his own license, if I recall correctly. His customers sharing the repeater need licenses. but it doesn't seem like the GMRS rules permit exactly the same setup.

I was not aware that Part 95A requires a licensed control operator because it actually doesn't.

95.171 requires the station to have an operator, designated by the licensee (95.103), at the station's control point. I don't see an exception for repeaters in there.

While 95.33 allows joint ownership of a repeater, there is no joint license in GMRS except for the limited number of non-individual grandfathered licenses still on the books.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I missed the system definition. Thanks for pointing that out.


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[bill4long]

I missed the system definition. Thanks for pointing that out.

No problem