Lscott

No, don’t have a law degree. The question about is there any reason why a privacy code might be used during an emergency so I offered up a possible reason. At least it gets people thinking.

That’s not the FCC grant sent to the manufacturer. As other people have discovered the fccid.io site has shown inaccurate information at times.

Well if the frequency is busy the emergency communication center personal has to monitor several radios. It gets stressful trying to tell if the current traffic is directed to the communication center or between other units. If you use a privacy code so only traffic that is directed to the communication center personal gets through takes a load off them. When they hear something they'll know for sure it's for them and not SAR unit members asking each other if anybody wants a break to get coffee and donuts.

That seems to be the current practice. More than one poster has mentioned the FCC is mainly reactive, complaint driven, enforcement action. They don't have the staff to hunt down every minor rules infraction.

Until it happens. Just because you don't see anything in the FCC enforcement logs doesn't imply there hasn't been any "unofficial" contact with a strong suggestion to stop what they are doing. While the probability is low it's not zero. People are free to chose however it wouldn't be ethical not to mention it. At least they can make a more informed decision. Maybe at some point the FCC will get around to allowing Part 90 radios to be "officially" used on GMRS even if they never had any Part 95 certification. One can hope and keep sending the FCC petitions to that effect.

FCC.io is good for a quick check. But as you discovered the FCC database is the "gold standard". If it isn't there it's not real.

Don't under estimate how many people you talk to on the radio are sitting at their computer, or smart phone, punching in your call sign into QRZ or the FCC search engine as you speak. A few ding-dongs have been found out high-jacking somebody's else's call-sign or using one that doesn't even exist. The FCC database is more interesting because it shows your license class. More than one Ham got caught on band segments that they don't hold the proper license class to use. You can't tell from the call sign format. I never changed mine from when I had a Tech Class license.

Nope. You had better luck than me. When I checked it didn't find anything. Yeah it looks like its certified for GMRS.

Not from what I see at that link. While the top section might show Part 95E but scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see it's ONLY certified as Part 15B. That last part is they only thing that counts, the grant the FCC issues to the manufacture. This looks like the certification for Ham equipment, which typically only gets Part 15. Likely they applied for Part 95E, top of web page, but haven't received it as yet. This link shows what you should see. It's for one of the favorite commercial radios people buy for GMRS. These are really nice radios for GMRS by the way, built like a brick, fairly light and fit in a shirt pocket. I have a few. https://fccid.io/ALH34713110 http://www.swscomm.com/kenwood/TK-2170_3170.pdf If you look at the brochure's last page near the bottom left area the FCC ID's for the different models are conveniently listed. If you look at the bottom of the page for the issued grant you'll see it has Part 95A, which at the time was the section for GMRS until the FCC revamped the rules a few years ago.

Ask your nearest FCC field office. I'm sure they would be delighted to point things out for you. If anybody has a question about their radio a simple check on he following site should be enough to answer the question. https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/GenericSearch.cfm Enter in the FCC ID for the radio as required, search, then check the grant and see what parts it's certified for by the FCC. If Part 95A (old rules) or Part 95E (new rules) is not shown then technically it can't be used. There is no wiggle room. People are using Part 90 radios on GMRS and so far the FCC has ignored it. However if they so choose to fine somebody, well, by the rules it never was legal so they took their chances.

That's petty much exactly what the rules say and requires. You would be surprised by how many people do in fact have multiple radios for the various services. It's common. We have one or more individuals on this form who feel that's rather inconvenient and look for creative ways to circumvent FCC regulations. Are they likely to get away with it? Yes, but if they do get busted I have some very serious doubts the administrative court would agree with their arguments. Paying attorney fees, court costs and the likely $10,000 FCC fine is an expensive way to test their arguments where it really matters.

The section of the rules quoted refers to over the air communications. It's very common to have multiple sets of radios grouped together which operate on different radios services. It makes no difference on the location or proximity of the equipment. It's not uncommon to find Ham, GMRS, FRS, CB, police, fire etc. radios all in one location. The communications are maned by people with the appropriate licenses and or agency authorizations for transmitting. You don't need a license to just monitor, a very important point. To further clarify what's going on is the following. When a GMRS user communicates to another station he does so under GMRS rules. If the other station replies they also must operate under GMRS rules. For example if a GMRS user contacts myself on the air, using GMRS certified equipment and legal frequencies, and I respond I must also be using the same. I'm in fact dual licensed for both Ham Radio and GMRS. That doesn't preclude me from turning around and now using my Ham Radio to forward the message on legal Ham frequencies. When I do so I'm now operation under my Ham license and rules.

They are a business and their main, only, interest is Profits.

I address the specific question that was quoted. Rule exceptions under emergency conditions are another whole topic. Mingling the exceptions with standard operating conditions does nothing but confuse people. People can decide themselves what to do with their equipment. What’s needed is clarity. You can have a radio that operates on both Ham and GMRS. So is it really a Ham radio modified to operate on GMRS frequencies, or is it a GMRS radio that can be programmed to operate on Ham frequencies? If it’s as you believe then why aren’t all GMRS radios out of the box designed to work on the Ham bands WITHOUT mucking with it first such as using manufactures undocumented software mod’s and “mode” changes. The same question can be asked about Ham equipment. After all what are the “MARS/CAP” mod’s? Reading the rules for GMRS one requirement is the frequency determining controls are not accessible outside of the transmitter. This is necessary for Part 95 certification. The channel selector doesn’t count because all legal frequencies are preset and can’t be changed by the user. Enabling a VCO type operation violates that requirement and by definition no longer meets type certification. While you may not care there are others who do and shouldn’t be misled.

Ah, a slight of hand bringing up emergency communications. That wasn’t part of the original question I quoted from your post. Under emergency conditions the rules have a few exceptions. However as a general point, as one is lead to believe by your original question, it’s prohibited. That hasn’t changed.

No. This I had thought about this exact scenario a long time ago and rejected it for the following reasons. The rules state, last I read them, that stations in the Amateur service may only communicate with other stations in the Amateur service. The second I-got-you is doing what you propose is effectively making a one way transmission, see point above, which is only allowed for testing and in very few other limited conditions on an occasional basis, again for the Amateur service. While the method would allow one to cross communicate between services without using modified radios the rules effectively shut the door on it.

If there is no requirement for a BCL, busy channel lockout, that would be worse, automatic interference. I also think you wouldn't want this on a repeater channel. That has the potential to block a frequency out over a very wide area if the repeater was activated. If were are going to tolerate GPS updates why not have it restricted to one channel only leaving everything else open for normal traffic? In the Ham world there are several frequencies in the band plans set aside specifically for packet and APRS. Keep it on one of the 8 low power, 1/2 watt, FRS channels. They are sort of useless for GMRS as it is.

Ok. Just wanted to be sure.

Oh, I hope you tried changing the timing parameters on the other radio(s) not on the 905G.

It was worth a shot if it fixed it. Perhaps a firmware update at some point might do the trick.

I have one of the 2x4SR antennas, and a buddy here at work put one on his pickup truck using a lip mount on the front hood near the roof pillar. They work OK, but being a 5/8 wave design you need a REALLY good ground plane. I did an SWR scan using a RigExpert AA-1000 and downloaded the data to a CAD package for plotting. As promised the SWR was under 2:1 around the GMRS frequencies and very surprisingly very low on the MURS frequencies. https://rigexpert.com/products/antenna-analyzers/aa-1000/ The antenna is somewhat sensitive to mounting location even with a good ground plane. If you want one antenna to cover Ham and GMRS its a good option.

Do the TX'ing radios allow changing the timing parameters for encoding the DTMF tones? I know on the commercial Kenwoods I have there are timing parameters I can tweak. Maybe your radio needs longer duration tones and slower sending rate to give it more time to decode.

On the Ham side DTMF tones have been used to access other linked analog repeaters using for example Echolink. I'm not sure if any linked GMRS repeaters use a similar system to access a specific linked repeater.

If it’s working for you cool. Sounds like you’re one of the few people that utilizes the radio’s full set of features, most don’t. Myself I would like to see Kenwood come out with a version of the TH-D74A but use DMR in place of D-Star. That would be a killer radio. I’ve scanned 220 around here by me and it seems basically dead. I have a cheap TYT TH-350 triband I use as a scanner at home. Mostly used to monitor the local mall security frequency, house keeping along with the neighborhood FRS stuff and the local GMRS repeater. For a CCR it’s an OK radio.

Most Linux distro's have a VM function. If it isn't installed then you can add it. If you don't want to go that route then you can get the VirtualBox add-in for Linux here. https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads Your next stop is to pick up a copy of Windows. An older version will likely work just fine for your needs. Look here. https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-nt-2000/final CHIRP will run on Linux. Some instructions are found here. https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Running_Under_Linux Good luck.