Repeater operation and liability under FCC rules

[BoxCar]

Recently in another thread I stated repeater operators were not responsible for carrying unlawful traffic. The position I took that repeater operators are not responsible is both true and not true. In my limited research, no repeater operators have been cited for the retransmission of unlawful traffic and, the only operators speciffically excluded for liability are amateurs operating under Part 97. In a discussion with the Commission regarding liability the Mobility Division stated that without a specific request the provisions of 95.1702(d) can be applied putting the responsibility for unlawful transmissions on the repeater owner/operator. This lack of any exclusion means a repeater operator must maintain a list of those operators both authorized and excluded from repeater operations as part of their station's documentation. With the exception of amateurs, all repeater operators can be held responsible for allowing the retransmission of unlawful traffic if the Commission decides to pursue the issue. While automated stations are an integral part of any land mobile radio operation the only protection offered is the used of access codes on the receive frequency of the repeater and a list of both authorized and unauthorized users.

Under current rules the Commission is unlikely to pursue enforcement against a repeater owner/operator without a specific complaint but the possibility exists without an exclusion being offered for automated stations.

[kidphc]

Pretty much. Although, you can't contol people who are accessing it. You are the control operator, so if they want to hit you they can.

You are definetly responsible for the repeater. Such as if it cause interference, frequency drift etc.

Never heard of anyone being chased legally. Although, I bet you there are cases where they have given polite but frightening warnings to correct the issue.

Wife is an attorney, a lot of the jargon is worded so they can do pretty much what they want (ie going after whatever people associated), if the need arises as well as to protect themselves.



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[tweiss3]

I think the big thing is have you done your part to attempt to stop interference or bad transmissions. If not, then yea, the FCC will throw the book at you (if they ever cared). The problem is, they have kneecapped GMRS from tools that would be useful. They don't even want MDC1200/Fleetsync to be used https://swcrs.org/?p=644. If I was really having an issue, it would be nice to have current solutions like RAS keys commonly used with P25/DMR.

That being said, the only way that I know to truly restrict access to the repeater would be to convert it to a single site/frequency LTR system (which is allowed by emissions designator), but I'm not 100% sure if that actually stops access from a user not in the database, or if it just makes it significantly harder to figure out how to program access. Either way, its something I am looking into as well. I just found a group of local amateurs that I talk to often (and have really good covering repeaters on the air) also have their GMRS license, and we recently talked about adding a repeater to the air. This thread does bring up some decent concerns.