Part 90 Repeater

[taco6513]

I have a couple of questions. What would be the difference between a community repeater and a standard part 

90 repeater? What would be the licensing differnece?

Does anyone know what the cost to license a part 90 repeater?

Thanks

KI5GXD

WRCW870 

[Jones]

A "Community repeater", where one person or company owns it, and a community of subscribers rent access to it, is in fact, Part 90.  Private, one-user repeaters for business are also covered under Part 90.  If it hasn't been changed, the law used to specify that on a community repeater, each business or set of users had to have their own license.

 

Such a repeater would first have to be frequency coordinated, which means after you secure a site, you need to contact a frequency coordination company, The FCC does not do this.  There is a fee that varies depending on which company you use for coordination, and I'm not sure about the current cost, but it used to be around $600, just to get assigned a frequency pair.  After that, there is a cost for licensing from the FCC, and I also cannot help you there, sorry. 

 

I've been away from commercial two-way for several years. Hopefully someone else on this site will know more about the current fees and costs.

[Radioguy7268]

Jones has it right regarding the Community repeater falling under Part 90 - and requiring each individual (or group) using the repeater to be licensed. The Licensing for a Community repeater will show an FB4 designation.

 

That said, most Community repeaters have gone the way of Party Line telephones. The current method that most shops use is the FB6 "Private Carrier" - which means that the business who owns the repeater is the  Licensee, and then they rent out airtime to individuals or user groups.  The biggest advantage to the FB6 Private Carrier designation is that you don't need to go get each user a 10 year license, especially if the use would be short term, like an event rental.

 

Cost for a 10 year license in Part 90 is $170  - PLUS you need to pay a Frequency Coordination fee (As far as I know, you cannot self-coordinate any FB6 repeater pairs). Frequency Coordination is a 3rd party, and the fees they charge can vary - but figure on spending between $350 to $500 for an FB6 coordination on a single frequency pair at a single site. Multiple pairs or Multi site systems can run much higher.

 

Frequency Coordination is a one time fee - and once you're built out and on the air, your only ongoing License fee is the (current) $170 renewal fee to the FCC every 10 years. Truly pennies per day to operate, and Coordination means that you should not be stepping on someone else's toes every time you key up, but in crowded Metropolitan areas, you will most likely not have truly exclusive use of a channel.