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This is, i believe, the 4th violation/action the FCC has issued on GMRS/CB radio in the last month - which is more than the last several years combined... I think we are seeing a new dawn in FCC actions in the CB/GMRS world.. 10 years too late, but better late than never.

Let me expand. Phone = voice (Mostly fm modulation, some are going to be digital aka dstar,p25,fusion,dmr,nxdn) Ssb = am single sideband voice Am = self expantory Data = digitl packets aka ft8, ft4 for the most part Rtty = radio teletype Image = slow scan images All of this is covered in the technician amateur radio license material. If you want more ino. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I'm sure this will spark an argument... but I want to make a few corrections. I'm not trying to pick on you... just want to put a tad more accurate info out there. Like you... my post is not very technical... more of a general concept. You are mistaken about wider signal having more range. The opposite is true... narrow band has better range. Wide has better audio fidelity. Wide receivers have less usable sensitivity than narrow bandwidth receivers because the wider the receiver, the more it fills with the broad spectrum noise. It then takes more desired received signal to pull the data out of the noise, reducing range per watt. This is why major manufactures collectively agreed, many decades ago, that 2.5 kHz bandwidth for SSB voice transmissions would be considered "normal" bandwidth. Also, the "bandwidth" and "channel spacing" are not the same. It looks like you may have mixed them up. In real-world application, GMRS WFM (aka wide band) "channel spacing" is 25 kHz and the typical occupied bandwidth is 20 kHz. The NFM (aka narrow band) channels are spaced 12.5 kHz and are typically 11 kHz occupied bandwidth. I measured one of my radios moments before posting this. My radio on wide band is 19.3 KHz with 4.4KHz deviation and narrow band is 10.3 KHz with 3.5 KHz deviation (a little hot). In laymen terms, the more bandwidth you use, the more data you can send. The more data you send, the better the fidelity can be. In GMRS voice, that data is your voice. Therefore, on wide band, you can have better audio fidelity due to more information transmitted and received. The reason audio from a narrow band transmission has low audio on a wide band receiver is because the receiver is tuned in such a way that it is listening to a wider spectrum of radio than the transmitted signal, and it is expecting more deviation than provided for the voice. The empty RF space is filled with random noise (same noise that reduces sensitivity / range) and the lack of deviation leads to lower audio levels. You combine the two and it can sound like less than half the expected/normal audio levels. The inverse is true when a narrow receiver hears a wide signal. The receiver is only hearing about half the signal (making it sound lower in tone) and the over-deviation causes a loud audio level... sometimes sounding a little distorted.

They must have seen one of your videos. I’m only partially kidding. I do wonder what has galvanized them and I really wouldn’t be surprised if they saw one of your videos.

Phone mostly fm modulation. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

As a former frequency coordinator, I have to say "depends." Most of the coordination plots use the Longley-Rice algorithm and the predicted coverage area between wide and narrow band remains the same in most cases. Some coverage areas do increase while some decrease, the change being about 3%. As to the performance of a radio at the fringe of the coverage, it again depends on both the radio's specifications and any change to the coverage shift if any,

I’m guessing it’s a homemade repeater that went on the fritz. That’s why there should be a TOT, time out timer, on the transmitter. Also there should be a repeater control operator monitoring it too. The later should have the ability to remotely gain control of the repeater and disable it. I’m reminded of another story on the Ham band. There was a similar case with a continuous unmodulated signal. That case was tracked down by some Hams using DF techniques. The cause was the mobile radio’s mic got stuck in the seat back somehow where the PTT was pressed in. The owner never noticed.

I do love when you start a post with “the following might include”… for real I have to disagree with the idea that this is focused on burritos though. The whole reason I get burritos is because all the goodness is wrapped up and easy to manage while motoring about. Now tacos that’s where you run into trouble! Stuff just sliding out the ends, it’s a mess, total food chaos.

Didn't see this on the forum so if it is apologize for the duplicate post. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-394174A1.pdf

This wouldn’t surprise me either. Also it is a government agency, they have been bringing in more money with popularity and license sales up and as these entities tend to get more budget based on previous budget spending. It stands to reason they gotta do more to justify getting more. Add in more users equal more potential miss users. When CB got ugly it was license free so it seemed no one cared but when people have to pay to use something they will have expectations they are getting something for the fees they pay. Just my thoughts…

Thanks, I misunderstood and thought you were either saying FRS was wide or that narrow required better technology but I think you are saying better technology would be needed (which it isn't in todays FRS bubble packs and I'm sure other radios) if you utilized moving things closer together to reduce bleed over. I need more coffee

Thats a MCC 7500 VPM console mic. While I've never looked at the pinout for converting it to another device it may or may not work. There was never a cable to go from this to a mobile radio so mic element may be different. I have also never seen the pinout for the gooseneck portion only the pinout of the VPM.

If your interactions with hams are generally limited to their freebanding then likely you're only interacting with the subset of hams that are willing to freeband. This would be confirmation-bias. I wouldn't be surprised if there's significant overlap between licensed amateur radio operators freebanding and 'whackers', the wannabes that, once they have a license to operate a radio, end up buying an old Crown Vic or a cargo van, painting "REACT Team" or "Emergency Communications" on it. This sort likes to assert that they have some kind of authority, whether they're actually associated with the organization or not, and whether SAR or public safety officials want them there or not. Freebanders stand out because their behavior stands out, and whackers may be attempting to justify their unauthorized transmissions based on the the clauses about operating on frequencies one isn't licensed for during emergencies, disregarding that the rules are supposed to allow that only when other forms of communication are not available. Regardless, this isn't the majority. This is a very noisy group that stands out due to the high-profile nature of what they're doing. Regardless, this is not a majority of hams. In my experience the sin that hams are most guilty of is navel-gazing, using ham radio to talk about ham radio, rather than using ham radio simply as a medium to communicate about other things. The phenomenon is similar to so many silver-screen-era musicals about making a show or a musical, the novelty wears off quickly.

Hams have very few limitations compared to other services. They are hobbyists, who are allowed a to do things with radios that are strictly forbidden on other services. They may make their own radios; their radios are not required to be certified to a particular standard, they are allowed higher power and many, many frequencies. They earn that trust by demonstrating a knowledge of the rules and regulations as well as by demonstrating a level of technical knowledge necessary to participate in such experimental radio pursuits. All other licensed service regulations are designed around utility users of those radios and require the manufacturers to provide a radio that is not easily configured to violate regulations. TL;DR? Ham radio operators are licensed to engage in advanced experimental radio as hobbyists. As such the requirements are stricter and require more technical and regulatory compliance knowledge. Why would anyone want the guvmint to dumb it down by removing the test requirement?