FCC GMRS Service Operations Page Updated 04 Aug, 2024

[WRZU673]

This is from the GMRS Operations Page . It looks like some drastic changes are inbound.

 

[WRXP381]

11 minutes ago, WRZU673 said:

This is from the GMRS Operations Page . It looks like some drastic changes are inbound.

Like what?  As much as I don’t think we need yet ANOTHER post about this topic I don’t see any changes let alone drastic ones. 

[WRQC527]

10 minutes ago, WRZU673 said:

This is from the GMRS Operations Page . It looks like some drastic changes are inbound.

 

Yep, but in order to make it stick, they need to clarify the actual rules, not just the operations page. Maybe that's next. But changing the operations page was a big step that shows they're at least listening.

[WRYZ926]

Let's see if the FCC goes through the proper procedures on actually changing the rules. Though in my opinion, the FCC is not actually changing the rules, just trying to clarify them instead. Again just my opinion since I am not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn.

[WRKC935]

Original post was the FCC website from Aug 4, 2024.  That was then updated above.  So no I wasn't crazy.  They had changed the web site on the 4th and it was still vague.  The 14 it was rewritten and they added what I posted below.  So yes, they are actively looking at this.

 

Well, they rewrote what it said on the 14 of August.  It's now clear that linking isn't acceptable.  Which sucks, but we don't make the rules.

 

Follow the link above for the rewrite, but here's the line in the changed posting from the FCC that sum's it up.

 Linking multiple repeaters to enable a repeater outside the communications range of the handheld or mobile device to retransmit messages violates sections 95.1733(a)(8) and 95.1749 of the Commission’s rules, and potentially other rules in 47 C.F.R.  Repeaters may be connected to the telephone network or other networks only for purposes of remote control of a GMRS station, not for carrying communication signals.

We have known that some sort of decision was coming about repeater linking on GMRS.  The regulations were vague and written in the typical hieroglyphs that the FCC and other government regulatory agencies are known for.  This definitively says that it violates 95.1733 and 95.1749 and possibly other parts of 47CFR.  For those that don't understand the 47 C.F.R. part.  That is the overall written regulations that cover most all of electronic communications.  It's sort of the master set of rules, then the "parts" were added like part 90 that covers two way communications, then the sub parts like 97 for ham radio, part 95 for GMRS and so on.    Meaning that other things in PART 90, like definitions of emission's and their designation's are established in 90 or other area's of 47 CFR and are used for regulations in ALL services in 47 including GMRS.  

I ain't real happy about this, but it is what they decided.  Going forward, YOU will need to decide what you are going to do with this information.  With the recent supreme court decision on Chevron, they can't just rewrite the actual regulation.  But they have looked at this and said that the current regulations do ban linking.  And they have spelled out what those regulations are specifically. 

This was one of those situations where 'be careful what you ask for' applies.  We wanted this decided.  And it had been decided at this point.  Just not in a way that we wanted it to turn out.

 

 

[WRYZ926]

6 minutes ago, WRKC935 said:

This was one of those situations where 'be careful what you ask for' applies.  We wanted this decided.  And it had been decided at this point.  Just not in a way that we wanted it to turn out.

I have seen this happen all too often with firearms owners contacting the ATF all of the time. That is part of why the ATF went after pistol braces like they did. But the courts smacked that rule change down since the ATF was trying to change the rules without following proper procedures.

I was never a fan of linking repeaters no matter what service they are for. Yes linking does have its place.

[WRKC935]

12 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

Let's see if the FCC goes through the proper procedures on actually changing the rules. Though in my opinion, the FCC is not actually changing the rules, just trying to clarify them instead. Again just my opinion since I am not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn.

Yeah, they aren't going to rewrite in my opinion.  They actually lay out the two numbered regulations that linking violates and then go on to say that it may violate other parts of 47 CFR.  So it's been looked at and that's their stance on it

 

[WRKC935]

1 minute ago, WRYZ926 said:

I have seen this happen all too often with firearms owners contacting the ATF all of the time. That is part of why the ATF went after pistol braces like they did. But the courts smacked that rule change down since the ATF was trying to change the rules without following proper procedures.

I was never a fan of linking repeaters no matter what service they are for. Yes linking does have its place.

Different situation with ATF.  They tired to put items in the list that was established under NFA that was a congressional rule making.  They can't 'change' congressional regulations.  Just like they can't remove suppressors from NFA by a mandate.  That will also need to be done by congress since they created the law to begin with.

This is a case of you can't do it now, and couldn't do it before under these defined regulations that have been on the books.  They aren't really making a change per say, just defining the historical regulations that are being violated.

Again, it SUCKS.  Linking if done properly can be useful and offer something to the service.  But it also redefines the service as a social media system, for general discussion.  And that's not what the service was suppose to be.  But neither is ham radio in truth. 

[WRYZ926]

That is why I wrote the following: 

24 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

Though in my opinion, the FCC is not actually changing the rules, just trying to clarify them instead

The FCC isn't changing the regulations, they are clarifying them.

Whether people like it or not, the FCC is making the rules/regulations a little easier to understand. Which is rare for any federal agency.

[kc9pke]

Back in the 80s/90s(?) GMRS licensees used to be permitted to have an additional fixed, point to point license in the 29 to 31 GHz band in Part 94, long stricken from the Code of Federal Regulations

I've taken that to think the FCC has long not wanted linking in GMRS, even if they didn't outwardly say so

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, WRQC527 said:

Yep, but in order to make it stick, they need to clarify the actual rules, not just the operations page. Maybe that's next. But changing the operations page was a big step that shows they're at least listening.

this does 'clarify' existing rules.   Pretty much spells out current rules so any 'dummy' can understand them.  But of course, still going to be 'some people' that insist on making up their own BS rules.   Now lets see how long it takes for the idiots linking repeaters to get the picture..      LMAO

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, WRYZ926 said:

Let's see if the FCC goes through the proper procedures on actually changing the rules. Though in my opinion, the FCC is not actually changing the rules, just trying to clarify them instead. Again just my opinion since I am not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn.

Pretty much what they are doing.  

[MarkInTampa]

The may be a stupid question, but....

The FCC page show that linking repeaters is not allowed but what about linking two or more base (fixed) stations that in turn key up a repeater? The repeater wouldn't be linked but the fixed station would be.

[WRXP381]

2 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

this does 'clarify' existing rules.   Pretty much spells out current rules so any 'dummy' can understand them.  But of course, still going to be 'some people' that insist on making up their own BS rules.   Now lets see how long it takes for the idiots linking repeaters to get the picture..      LMAO

Yup.  I’m pretty sick of this topic. It’s been beat to death the past few months.  The rules didn’t really change.  It is just a clarification that most will ignore like always.  Will the fcc fallow up? Maybe? Probably not? Who knows?  If history of enforcement tells us anything then…? 

[WSAI757]

 

Quote

Yup.  I’m pretty sick of this topic. It’s been beat to death the past few months.  The rules didn’t really change.  It is just a clarification that most will ignore like always.  Will the fcc fallow up? Maybe? Probably not? Who knows?  If history of enforcement tells us anything then…? 

If a branch of the government is going to spend time and resources clarifying things like this, they will most likely follow through with some enforcement.

They'll probably pick off a few of the guys that run the big networks. It'll be big fines and a slam dunk on the challenge if they are fought in court with how clearly things are spelled out now.

For the last year this topic has really been boiling, yet people said "oh it will take years, maybe never, for the FCC to clarify linking repeaters". Under a year for clarification tells me that they've gotten so many complaints that they can't sweep them under the rug anymore. If this doesn't work they'll nail a couple guys to the wall to set an example so they (FCC) can quit spending time on GMRS.

[marcspaz]

My unsolicited opinion, people who don't like linked repeaters now, are REALLY going to regret bitching about network linked repeaters in the near future, if the courts end up agreeing.

 

I can't find a single entry in the Communication Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, that gives the FCC the authority or purpose to prohibit repeater linking.  There are zero FCC rules that prohibit repeater linking.  What there is, are some debates on if a repeater link that traverse a network AND provides some form of message relay both over the air and on the network, is allowed by the rules or not.  This is because the rules are not clear due to contradicting entries, when reviewing the rules and the definitions as a whole.  Updating a web page is not the same as updating rules or statutory code to be more clear.

 

Now, the bad news for people who hate linked repeaters.  Again, there are zero laws or rules prohibiting linking.  Lets say this network issues goes all the way to the SCOTUS and the court sides with the Link haters and the FCC... you haters are going to be even worse off, because then, 100% of all repeater linking will be limited to using RF links.  This is gonna suck for GMRS users (except for the linked repeater owners) because if we follow the rules of the PRS, we can only use in-service frequencies for relaying information.

 

Let me explain...  the rules say that repeaters can only transmit on the 462 main channels.  There are exactly zero rules about what the repeater input frequency should be, outside of being one of the GMRS frequencies.  That means while repeater outputs will stay the same, legal linking can and will start occurring with uplinks on every single GMRS frequency... not just the 467 mains... flooding the channels with linked audio.

 

So, right or wrong, if you hate linked repeaters and are bitching about it here or to the FCC in hopes that if the networked repeaters go away, somehow your quiet RF utopia will somehow be restored, my forecast is that you are going to be very, very wrong.  It's probably going to get much worse due to spreading to all channels.

[Raybestos]

1 hour ago, marcspaz said:

My unsolicited opinion, people who don't like linked repeaters now, are REALLY going to regret bitching about network linked repeaters in the near future, if the courts end up agreeing.

 

I can't find a single entry in the Communication Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, that gives the FCC the authority or purpose to prohibit repeater linking.  There are zero FCC rules that prohibit repeater linking.  What there is, are some debates on if a repeater link that traverse a network AND provides some form of message relay both over the air and on the network, is allowed by the rules or not.  This is because the rules are not clear due to contradicting entries, when reviewing the rules and the definitions as a whole.  Updating a web page is not the same as updating rules or statutory code to be more clear.

 

Now, the bad news for people who hate linked repeaters.  Again, there are zero laws or rules prohibiting linking.  Lets say this network issues goes all the way to the SCOTUS and the court sides with the Link haters and the FCC... you haters are going to be even worse off, because then, 100% of all repeater linking will be limited to using RF links.  This is gonna suck for GMRS users (except for the linked repeater owners) because if we follow the rules of the PRS, we can only use in-service frequencies for relaying information.

 

Let me explain...  the rules say that repeaters can only transmit on the 462 main channels.  There are exactly zero rules about what the repeater input frequency should be, outside of being one of the GMRS frequencies.  That means while repeater outputs will stay the same, legal linking can and will start occurring with uplinks on every single GMRS frequency... not just the 467 mains... flooding the channels with linked audio.

 

So, right or wrong, if you hate linked repeaters and are bitching about it here or to the FCC in hopes that if the networked repeaters go away, somehow your quiet RF utopia will somehow be restored, my forecast is that you are going to be very, very wrong.  It's probably going to get much worse due to spreading to all channels.

Hopefully, the FCC will have the foresight and the sense to make linking repeaters prohibited, by whatever means.  They got it right about it not serving the purpose of GMRS with linking.  This is a cancer that never should have seen the light of day.

[WRUU653]

27 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

So, right or wrong, if you hate linked repeaters and are bitching about it here or to the FCC in hopes that if the networked repeaters go away, somehow your quiet RF utopia will somehow be restored, my forecast is that you are going to be very, very wrong.  It's probably going to get much worse due to spreading to all channels.

I don’t know Marc, I respect your opinion, you know I do but seems that they will just re clarify the rules.

“Linking repeaters, via the internet or other networks, undermines the purpose and usefulness of the GMRS and FRS.”

My unsolicited opinion is I don’t hate linked repeaters, that’s one reason I got my Amateur license after my GMRS license, so I could use our County wide voting repeater system we have here. It’s great. 

I don’t hate linked GMRS repeaters. Hate is too strong a word. I don’t like the idea of linked repeaters on GMRS though.
I’d like to see GMRS not get over crowded to the point people have difficulty using it for simplex coms. I’d like to see it not become Ham or CB but rather stay its own thing. FRS 2.0 if you will. With the emphasis on the F for family. Someone here made a great point that children with FRS radios aren’t likely to go away and that’s what will keep GMRS from becoming ham lite. GMRS is forever tied to FRS (Family Radio Service) and that’s what will keep it restricted. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. GMRS should be for us to use with families, off-roading, camping, at the lake, staying in touch with the kids and grandkids and yes with repeaters. But not covering multiple states. People that want linked repeaters? Okay, get off the “I hate hams bandwagon” and get your Technicians license and have at it. It’s not hard. So many people jump on Randy’s sad ham meme but I see just as many sad Gmrs people. However for the most part radio people in both realms are pretty decent at least that’s been my experience. So yeah I know you have your ham license as do I but If you belong to a radio forum, you might be a radio dork, as am I but I think most people on FRS and GMRS aren’t though. That’s what’s great about it, we can get our non radio people, friends and families into GMRS easy. If you mutate it into ham you’ll loose what makes it unique and useful.
Just my opinion. 

[marcspaz]

1 hour ago, RayP said:

Hopefully, the FCC will have the foresight and the sense to make linking repeaters prohibited, by whatever means.  They got it right about it not serving the purpose of GMRS with linking.  This is a cancer that never should have seen the light of day.

 

Why would you say that. The purpose is to facilitate the needs of the licensee. Just because you don't like it, that doesn't mean it's not desired by others. The idea of mandating things you like and banning the things you don't is what tyrants do.

[marcspaz]

35 minutes ago, WRUU653 said:

I don’t know Marc, I respect your opinion, you know I do but seems that they will just re clarify the rules.

 

I appreciate the kind words... I do. And honestly, I don't have any skin in the game since I don't have a linked repeater system. However, I am on the side of freedom. I am also on the side of demanding rules be clear and make sense so the average person has the ability to operate within the rules.

[WRKC935]

1 hour ago, marcspaz said:

My unsolicited opinion, people who don't like linked repeaters now, are REALLY going to regret bitching about network linked repeaters in the near future, if the courts end up agreeing.

 

I can't find a single entry in the Communication Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, that gives the FCC the authority or purpose to prohibit repeater linking.  There are zero FCC rules that prohibit repeater linking.  What there is, are some debates on if a repeater link that traverse a network AND provides some form of message relay both over the air and on the network, is allowed by the rules or not.  This is because the rules are not clear due to contradicting entries, when reviewing the rules and the definitions as a whole.  Updating a web page is not the same as updating rules or statutory code to be more clear.

 

Now, the bad news for people who hate linked repeaters.  Again, there are zero laws or rules prohibiting linking.  Lets say this network issues goes all the way to the SCOTUS and the court sides with the Link haters and the FCC... you haters are going to be even worse off, because then, 100% of all repeater linking will be limited to using RF links.  This is gonna suck for GMRS users (except for the linked repeater owners) because if we follow the rules of the PRS, we can only use in-service frequencies for relaying information.

 

Let me explain...  the rules say that repeaters can only transmit on the 462 main channels.  There are exactly zero rules about what the repeater input frequency should be, outside of being one of the GMRS frequencies.  That means while repeater outputs will stay the same, legal linking can and will start occurring with uplinks on every single GMRS frequency... not just the 467 mains... flooding the channels with linked audio.

 

So, right or wrong, if you hate linked repeaters and are bitching about it here or to the FCC in hopes that if the networked repeaters go away, somehow your quiet RF utopia will somehow be restored, my forecast is that you are going to be very, very wrong.  It's probably going to get much worse due to spreading to all channels.

Marc, I am going to politely disagree and agree at the same point.

The agreement is they didn't make a change to the wording of the regulations.  Those stayed as they were.

The disagreement comes with the fact they took two specific parts of the regulation and said that linking violated those specific parts of the regulations.

Now, that goes against that statement that was made to the inquiry under Case Id: HD0000002831371 where someone ask the question about linking and they replied with

*****Solution Description: Dear Mr. Beck,
Currently, the FCC does not have a restriction/rule that would prohibit connecting GMRS repeaters via the internet so long as eligible use and control was maintained of the authorized facilities. *****
(That's what they sent me)
Should you have any further questions, or need additional information, please submit a request through https://esupport.fcc...linerequest.htm or call the FCC Licensing Support Center at 1-877-480-3201, selecting option 2 after the main menu.
Sincerely,
FCC Licensing Support Center "

Now this was from back in 2016, so what changed, because from then to now, the actual rules haven't been modified.  But they are claiming now that it's 'illegal' to link repeaters.  But, we can get into the semantics of legal vs illegal and allowed / disallowed via the regulations.  Traffic laws are laws.  Laws are written by some governing body, voted on and then codified as a law.  Regulations are not voted on but instead created by a governing body with or without input from elected officials.  So does the violation of a regulation make the act illegal criminally, or is it a civil act to violate a government regulation but NOT a criminal act?  You still end up in court, and you still get fined if found to be in violation. 

And, did the FCC create GMRS or did congress?  If it was a congressional act then all the regulations are laws.  At this point it really doesn't matter.

Point is that they have said that they will use 95.1733 and 95.1749 then possibly including other parts of 47 C.F.R. as the hammer to beat you with.  So they at least have looked at it to the point of figuring our what regulations it violates. 

Now I don't know if they even took into account that the original source of 95.1749 was AT&T and other telco's that lobbied the FCC due to concerns that they would miss out on long distance fee's. 

Now regarding 95.1733, which is wireline connection.  I am in violation of that for sure because I operate a radio that is not physically located at my residence.  I have an IP based radio console system that links to a tower site that I have all my radios at.  I operate those radios (control stations) across that IP link.  But if you look in 47 CFR, the definition of wireline is basically a remote control point running to a fixed base.  But that would also mean that Zello isn't legal to be connected to a repeater or a control station being used for GMRS.  Not sure how they would track all that down.  But if you want to go by the letter of the regulation, that is also against the rules. 

I will say that I don't like the way this turned out.  I was hoping that it would have gone the other way and that linking was going to be allowed and that they would toss 95.1749 out and remove 95.1733(a)(8) (wireline) from the regulations and possibly set something in place to require anyone providing a linked repeater would also be required to ensure an accessable unlinked repeater exist within the coverage of the linked repeater they had.  Not a requirement of having two repeaters, but a requirement that there was a PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE repeater with a similar coverage footprint.  Sure that takes up two pairs instead of just one, but it would keep conversations that were in that footprint, in that footprint. 

[WRYZ926]

2 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

I am also on the side of demanding rules be clear and make sense so the average person has the ability to operate within the rules.

We are talking about the government here. They can't do anything simple. The only exception that I ever saw was while I was in the military. Military manuals are about the only government printed documents that are easy to understand (for the most part).

I have no skin in this game since we don't plan on ever linking our GMRS repeater.

[Raybestos]

9 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

Why would you say that. The purpose is to facilitate the needs of the licensee. Just because you don't like it, that doesn't mean it's not desired by others. The idea of mandating things you like and banning the things you don't is what tyrants do.

Hi Marc!  Normally, on many topics, I might be inclined to agree with you, but not on this one.  Regarding linking GMRS repeaters, it is much more than going against my personal preference.  These linked repeaters, as correctly noted by the FCC in their most recent missive on the topic, go against the originally intended purpose of Class A CB/GMRS. In many cases, they tie up precious and scarce GMRS spectrum for hours with absolute drivel that often as not, is taking place on one repeater, maybe two, out of several or dozens of linked repeaters.  This renders not only the linked repeaters not being used to facilitate the conversation as useless, but also use of the 50W simplex channels (same frequencies) which carry those conversations but are not involved in them.  There are areas in our country where all eight repeater/50W simplex channels are polluted with conversations taking place on one repeater in the linked system for significant portions of the day.  What about the rights of GMRS licensees and their families to use the service as originally intended?  Do they not matter?  Or does "might make right"?

Friday about a week ago, I decided to try the unofficial and informal Friday night 9PM Simplex net on Channel 19 (462.550).  Unfortunately, there is a linked repeater on that frequency tied in with several others, located about 20 miles from me.  It has a fairly strong signal at my home.  Wouldn't you know it, right at 9PM, two guys on a repeater about 100 miles away started jawjacking and rendered all of the repeaters on that paid network, as well as the Simplex channels those repeaters were on, useless.  "Hey Bob."  "Yeah."  "Whut are you doin."  "Nothin."  "Me too." ...and it just went on and on from there.  Was me being unable to contact a possible local on simplex, the end of the world?  Of course not, but this typifies how obnoxious linked repeaters are.

I am also a ham.  I think the linked repeaters suck on 2m, 220, 440, etc, for similar reasons, but I am not calling for outlawing them.  Ham has lots more spectrum to accommodate this foolishness and has, as one of its many purposes, facilitation of experimentation and such.  If someone has an insatiable desire to use the exact same technology (VOIP) that facilitates long distance phone calls, let em get their Technician or higher class license.  If it isn't worth that small effort to them to make it happen, then they never really wanted it to begin with.

With "freedom" comes responsibility.  Do laws that require us to drive on the right hand side of the road equal tyranny?  What about laws requiring us to stop at a Stop sign or red light?  Should someone be able to decide to block off your street and stage an hour long parade down it, denying you access to your home or the ability to leave it?

 

 

[WRUU653]

6 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

I appreciate the kind words... I do. And honestly, I don't have any skin in the game since I don't have a linked repeater system. However, I am on the side of freedom. I am also on the side of demanding rules be clear and make sense so the average person has the ability to operate within the rules.

You’ll get no argument from me on the rules needing to be clear. I just sold my parents home and I swear there must be 10 more pages than the last time I dealt with a real estate transaction… why so complicated? You bought it, I sold it end of story.
I get being on the side of freedom… as long as it doesn’t infringe on others freedoms. If I may put my own simplified analogy inspired by @WRKC935‘s traffic law comments… Think of a ham radio license as the ability to travel the roads at speed (using many frequencies and repeaters linked and otherwise) only people in a cross walk (GMRS/FRS) need a space albeit a much smaller space where they can travel (operate) without being run over. There’s only a small number of frequencies available and mass linking takes away from those who have a small space to operate. 
I feel pretty free in the ability to roam in both places. I’m okay with some regulations. While nothing is perfect, It’s part of society that for the most part works. I feel better knowing that we have crosswalks for my grandchildren. The limitations of GMRS/FRS I hope will keep it from being taken over by hams or worse yet the madness that is CB and that it remains family friendly. 
We don’t have linked repeaters where I am other than ham. We do have some decent GMRS repeaters though. I’m thankful that we do. If I don’t want to listen to a state wide repeater on ham it’s easy to find somewhere else on the radio to go. I think as GMRS continues to gain in popularity that won’t be easy to do. So while I don’t really have skin in the game either I’m compelled to speak my mind for what I think is the big picture and the greater good even if it’s for someone else. It would seem the FCC regulations while confusing at times has clarified their position on the subject. I just happen to agree with the why that they have put forth. 
 

[marcspaz]

@WRKC935, well written and I agree with a vast majority of what you wrote.  Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

 

@RayP I agree that the situations you describe are terrible for a service that has so few available frequencies.  There should be some regulation.  I am not against regulations.  As a civilized society, we all agree to live by a certain set of rules.  However, our nation is a Constitutional Republic designed to protect the Rights of the minority.  There should be some allowances or concessions made, to some degree.  For example, remote receivers for repeaters with a large footprint, to fill in receive gaps that impact mobile and portable stations.  Or, restricting linked repeaters to only 2 machines per link and they must be on the same frequency (I'm just generalizing for example, of course).

 

As I mentioned, mandating things you like and banning the things you don't is tyrannical behavior.  The People collectively agreeing on rules to live by are not the same thing as the Government arbitrarily changing their mind on what is right or wrong when there has been zero law or rule change reviewed and approved by the people.