Say Goodbye to Your CB Radio

[MOguy]

I recently bought a cheap radio off the internet that is FRS, GMRS and some ham frequencies.

I just realized realized my kids walmart walkie talkie broadcast FRS and a few channels on GMRS. Had 12 year old son and his 12 year old buddies have been broadcasting on GMRS they would have been doing it "illegally" for a while now.

I'm getting my license for GMRS, I understand it will cover my family, what about my son's Buddies on the walkie talkies?

When I buy my fishing licenses and hunting licenses the money supposedly goes back to conservation to help with managing wildlife. Where does the money go when you get your license for the radio frequencies?

 

[prerunner1982]

I recently bought a cheap radio off the internet that is FRS, GMRS and some ham frequencies.

I just realized realized my kids walmart walkie talkie broadcast FRS and a few channels on GMRS. Had 12 year old son and his 12 year old buddies have been broadcasting on GMRS they would have been doing it "illegally" for a while now.

I'm getting my license for GMRS, I understand it will cover my family, what about my son's Buddies on the walkie talkies?

When I buy my fishing licenses and hunting licenses the money supposedly goes back to conservation to help with managing wildlife. Where does the money go when you get your license for the radio frequencies?

Your radio is probably not type accepted for FRS/GMRS use, not that anyone would know over the air unless you make mention of the radio you are using.
Your son's buddy would be on his own....breakin' the law. If the radios are less than 2 watts they are now considered FRS even on GMRS channels since they now share all the same channels except repeater inputs.
Money for GMRS license goes into the FCC pockets, salaries and operating costs. Small drop in their bucket though.

 

[MOguy]

Your radio is probably not type accepted for FRS/GMRS use, not that anyone would know over the air unless you make mention of the radio you are using.
Your son's buddy would be on his own....breakin' the law. If the radios are less than 2 watts they are now considered FRS even on GMRS channels since they now share all the same channels except repeater inputs.
Money for GMRS license goes into the FCC pockets, salaries and operating costs. Small drop in their bucket though.

Thanks for the info. When I Google my kids radio it says they are 2 watts, so that means him and his buddies are safe from the law?

Mine is more than that so I should be good to go once I get my gmrs license.

 

[prerunner1982]

Thanks for the info. When I Google my kids radio it says they are 2 watts, so that means him and his buddies are safe from the law?

Mine is more than that so I should be good to go once I get my gmrs license.

Right, they are good on FRS.
You should be OK.... other than your radio not being type accepted.

 

[dreadlocks]

mostly as long as they stay on FRS/GMRS bandplan, however they are not FCC Licensed for FRS they are still technically not kosher but I cant throw stones, my radios are not approved for FRS/GMRS either.

before they changed the rules in 2017 basically everyone was a license violator, almost all off the shelf radios were fully capable of operating within GMRS only rules yet there was nothing at all with the radios indicating that using certain channels required a license.. as a result the lil part carved out for GMRS users was almost always being used by operators w/out a license or any idea they were required to have one.

 

[MOguy]

mostly as long as they stay on FRS/GMRS bandplan, however they are not FCC Licensed for FRS they are still technically not kosher but I cant throw stones, my radios are not approved for FRS/GMRS either.

before they changed the rules in 2017 basically everyone was a license violator, almost all off the shelf radios were fully capable of operating within GMRS only rules yet there was nothing at all with the radios indicating that using certain channels required a license.. as a result the lil part carved out for GMRS users was almost always being used by operators w/out a license or any idea they were required to have one.

Or had any idea what FRS or GMRS was. I just thought they were channels 1-22.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Or had any idea what FRS or GMRS was. I just thought they were channels 1-22.

The 2017 FRS and GMRS rule rewrite was done to grandfather all the blister pack radios as now de-facto FRS. Prior to that they were being illegally operated on GMRS frequencies if the user didn't get a license. The Type approval (eg. a hybrid FRS/GMRS) they tested against no longer exists but the FCC isn't going to retroactively punish anyone so long as they were made prior to 2017 and don't transmit more than 2W anywhere. Not even the most stick-in-the-mud curmudgeon could impose a violation.

 

[MOguy]

The 2017 FRS and GMRS rule rewrite was done to grandfather all the blister pack radios as now de-facto FRS. Prior to that they were being illegally operated on GMRS frequencies if the user didn't get a license. The Type approval (eg. a hybrid FRS/GMRS) they tested against no longer exists but the FCC isn't going to retroactively punish anyone so long as they were made prior to 2017 and don't transmit more than 2W anywhere. Not even the most stick-in-the-mud curmudgeon could impose a violation.

What was the problem with them, why are they no longer available?

 

[dreadlocks]

FCC was rather dense when they drew up GMRS for the first time, half of the channels unlicensed and half of em licensed (roughly, actually more FRS than GMRS), they then approved mass produced 'blister/bubble pack' radios to operate on licensed frequencies.. so people like your self whom just bought 'walkie talkies' and picked a channel had no idea they were on bands allocated to license holders unless they read some fine print in a manual somwhere.. this in turn pissed off the license holders whom saw no point in paying to use a band that was mostly being utilized by unlicensed operators... They should had released FRS only radios with none of the GMRS frequencies enabled out of the box.. then hide deep in the manual that if your a GMRS license user, this is the bit you need to flip to open up the extra licensed channels.

This all ended up hampering adoption and growth of GMRS, almost nobody renewed licensed that had them once they realized they just pissed the money away for a useless piece of paper.

In 2017 FCC changed the rules to make most of the frequencies legit for unlicensed use, and changed the GMRS licensing to provide for extra power output on some of the shared FRS frequencies and further carved out the repeater inputs from unlicensed use by limiting power on the adjacent unlicensed frequencies to very low levels.. so effectively all those blister pack radio operators are now legitimate after several decades of operating unlawfully.

 

[Billoftt]

When I buy my fishing licenses and hunting licenses the money supposedly goes back to conservation to help with managing wildlife. Where does the money go when you get your license for the radio frequencies?

I don't know exactly what happens with FFC license fees. What I do know is that when the US Forest Service sells timber harvested from the site that I work on (Owned by US Dept. of Energy) that money goes straight to the treasury. Also, when any one up us Federal employees serves on jury duty we surrender any pay received to the payroll dept. and it goes to the US Treasury as well. Kinda sucks because there is usually 6-7 million per year of timber sales that we would could really, really use in our operations budget.

Anyway, I imagine they may have a similar arrangement.

Sent from my SM-J320P using Tapatalk

 

[Billoftt]

before they changed the rules in 2017 basically everyone was a license violator, almost all off the shelf radios were fully capable of operating within GMRS only rules yet there was nothing at all with the radios indicating that using certain channels required a license.. as a result the lil part carved out for GMRS users was almost always being used by operators w/out a license or any idea they were required to have one.

And now that there is no explicit exemption for Part 90 equipment, technically almost every repeater is illegal now.

Sent from my SM-J320P using Tapatalk

 

[MOguy]

I don't know exactly what happens with FFC license fees. What I do know is that when the US Forest Service sells timber harvested from the site that I work on (Owned by US Dept. of Energy) that money goes straight to the treasury. Also, when any one up us Federal employees serves on jury duty we surrender any pay received to the payroll dept. and it goes to the US Treasury as well. Kinda sucks because there is usually 6-7 million per year of timber sales that we would could really, really use in our operations budget.

Anyway, I imagine they may have a similar arrangement.

Sent from my SM-J320P using Tapatalk

When you pay licensing fees it would be nice to see that Revenue go back into the actual area that your licensed to operate within or take part in.

When I pay for my hunting and fishing licenses I feel a sort of Pride. I feel like I'm giving to something that I enjoy and somehow I am part of its future.

 

[DaveInDenver]

What was the problem with them, why are they no longer available?

They are, they clarified that they can only be FRS going forward and there's no small print on a card that got ignored saying that to operate on channels 16 through 22 you have to get a license first. They created a mess by allowing the hybrid radios in the first place so they amended the rules to grandfather them.

 

[MOguy]

They are, they clarified that they can only be FRS going forward and there's no small print on a card that got ignored saying that to operate on channels 16 through 22 you have to get a license first. They created a mess by allowing the hybrid radios in the first place so they amended the rules to grandfather them.

So you just get your GMRS license and your good to go?

 

[DaveInDenver]

So you just get your GMRS license and your good to go?

What, to use the old blister pack radios? Those are probably now categorized as FRS (assuming they do no more than 2W on 1 to 7 and 15 to 22 or 0.5 W on 8 to 14) so no license is needed to use them.

If they are greater than 2W on any channel then yes you would need to get a GMRS license now (or really still, since you always did technically). Some blister pack radios did 5W and those would be grandfathered as GMRS.

The rule revision made combo radios obsolete going forward so anything you buy now should be either FRS or GMRS but not both.