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On January 14, 2008, the Philadelphia Pennsylvania FCC Enforcement Bureau Field Office cited WestCom Wireless, Inc., (westpenncomm.com) located in McKeesport, PA, a mobile radio sales and service company, serving public safety and business users In the Pittsburgh, PA area, for programming General Mobile Radio Service frequencies into radios operated by the Harrison Township Water Authority, licensee of Land Mobile Radio Station WQCC972. See EB-07-PA-397 Citation No.: C20083240001.

The FCC made a departure from past practice in this citation. In the past the FCC had not taken action against the radio shops programming GMRS channels into customer radios but rather cited or fined the shop’s customers for operation on frequencies on which the customer had no license. The FCC said in the citation:

“Section 90.427(b) states “[e]xcept for frequencies used in accordance with S: 90.417, no person shall program into a transmitter frequencies for which the licensee using the transmitter is not authorized.” WestCom Wireless, Inc. programmed eight Kenwood TK-8160K mobile radios with a frequency for which Harrison Township Water Authority is not authorized.”

Full text of the FCC action is available at the FCC website at: http://www.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/2003/DOC-279730A1.html

It just does not make sense but GMRS continues to cope with unlicensed use of GMRS by public safety agencies. In the last week the PRA reported to the FCC a new unlicensed operation in the north-east USA. “We’re not sure what drives a public safety agency e.g. fire, police, emergency management, public works, or utility to violate FCC Rules but it seems to happen with unfortunate regularity,” said Doug Smith, PRA Board of Trustees.

In some cases the PRA has determined the radio shop doing the work mislead the customer deliberately and the customer in turn did not ask questions one might expect from a professional radio system user. “There is an assumption made that public safety agencies should know better,” said Smith. “These same agencies protect us day-to-day and have sophisticated and coordinated radio systems to do their work. Why then do jurisdictions feel compelled to occupy a repeater pair or simplex frequency in the General Mobile Radio Service when the agency is ineligible to license in GMRS?,” Smith conjectured.

Licensee’s might be inclined to think that public safety pirates believe that no one is watching or really cares. That perception is wrong. Licensees across the United States are fed up after years of assault by professional rule breakers. GMRS licensees are indeed watching. Within minutes of activation one unlicensed public safety system was identified and reported. It does not take long to locate and identify the brazen violator. That said, it should behoove all public safety radio system licensees to do the right thing and avoid unlicensed operation especially in radio services that these entities are not entitled to use in the first place. When such systems are identified and reported to the FCC the agency earns a bad reputation. Playing dumb is not likely to get the agency out of a serious enforcement issue. A public-safety FCC Rules violator believes the FCC Rules are for someone else.

PRA members in Calvert, St. Mary’s, and Charles County, Maryland are listening for a bus company heard using 457.575 MHz. Although not a GMRS channel this frequency is important to GMRS.  A search of the FCC ULS produced no school or bus service authorized to use 457.575 in Maryland or Virginia.  This frequency is one of those allocated to foreign ships while in US waters under international treaty and FCC Rules. Technically it is an FCC Part 90 business frequency that requires coordination and an FCC business radio license. We are assuming based on the ULS search that these users are unlicensed.

When the frequency is occupied by American pirates (unlicensed users) it could have the effect of crowding away foreign ships onto GMRS.   Ships might then be inclined to use GMRS channels causing FSI-Foreign Shipping Interference. The licensed users of 457.575 MHz  in Maryland are mostly very low power telemetry systems controlling sprinklers on golf courses. Hospitals are also among other licensed users. The busses using this frequency could also be causing severe interference to these coordinated and licensed users.

GMRS licensees in Calvert County are encouraged to monitor  457.575 and report strong signal strengths of bus related traffic to PRA HQ. On-the-air references to Hallowing Point Trailer Park on Route 231 were heard as were bus numbers 3, 27, 49, 87, 99, 120, and 125, A female’s name that is used frequently is Rene. Radio traffic is regarding the loading and dispatching of buses.  A  quickly obtained  directional antenna bearing  was toward Route 231 from  Plum Point, MD.

Once identified the company’s activity will be reported to the Federal Communications Commission.

 

(New Jersey/New York) - PRA members  in New York and New Jersey heard a steady carrier on 462.700 MHz for about two days, January 10-12,2008. The signal showed no signs of going away so members put their RDF capability to work. In a stunningly short time,  just thirty minutes,  the repeater site was located. The member locating the repeater determined that there was no signal on the repeater input causing the repeater to hang. The probable cause was believed to be a defective repeater controller.

The owner of the repeater could not be immediately determined by making calls on the repeater itself. Not a soul was listening on any active tone. There were an astounding number of CTCSS tones active on the system which begs the question are these tones all necessary?

The repeater antenna was located on a tower belonging to a television broadcast station. Contact was made at the station and the situation explained. Station staff were very helpful providing the telephone number of the manager for the station technical staff. Station staff did not know at the time who the repeater belonged to but assured the PRA member it would be turned off by Saturday morning.

The repeater did turn off finally and is no longer causing interference. The PRA Enforcement Teams would like to remind all repeater owners that you have an OBLIGATION to monitor your GMRS system to PREVENT such occurrences. Situations like this should not take days to resolve by other licensees.  The repeater itself had no control operator on duty to monitor it’s functions  and control operator is REQUIRED.

When no one is using a GMRS repeater system it should be turned off by a control operator to prevent unauthorized operation or malfunctions when no operator is on duty. This is particularly true in areas like New Jersey and New York where there are numerous GMRS repeater systems sharing the same frequency. It is the polite and courteous thing to do.

In the last year, the Personal Radio Association has noticed an increase in illegal radio repeaters constructed using Family Radio Service frequencies as input or output channels.

Unscrupulous radio shops fraudulently place customer radio systems on unlicensed radio repeaters to avoid licensing and coordination costs. There is an apparent assumption that the illegal radio system will never be noticed. GMRS frequencies had been used for years for pirate systems. As interest in GMRS grew the radio shops have started to use the Family Radio Service.

Because there is also a growing national awareness of GMRS and FRS abuses these systems are noticed, located, and then reported to the FCC. “We will report every FRS repeater brought to our attention,” said Doug Smith, President PRA Board of Trustees. “These FRS repeaters cause harmful interference to licensed GMRS repeaters,” said Smith.

In the northeast US a Long Island hospital maintenance staff was found on an FRS repeater as was an assembly line located in an Edison, New jersey business park. Another abuse found in the north east was a commercial Part 90 business repeater using an input on an FRS channel. Readers of this magazine also remember the FRS repeater in use by Rockaway Township, NJ snow plows during December 2007.

Too many of these systems are turning up. GMRS licensees and users of the Family Radio Service are requested to alert the Personal Radio Association to any FRS abuses in their communities or to report those systems to the FCC directly using the Gettysburg address listed in the Part 95 GMRS Rules.

On Sunday December 9, 2007 the PRA filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against Rockaway Township, New Jersey. Multiple GMRS licensees with repeaters using 462.700/467.700 MHz have been experiencing severe interference on their repeater input frequency making use of their repeaters almost impossible. A PRA Enforcement Team member used radio direction finding techniques to identify the culprits as the snow removal crews of the Rockaway Township Department of Public Works. The suspect radio system was operating with a high-power and most-likely wide band (25 KHz) repeater output on Family Radio Service channel 13, DCS 071, 467.6875 MHz. Repeaters with inputs on 467.700 are receiving interference.

The PRA contacted the Rockaway Township Mayor’s office by telephone on Friday December 14 at 2:00 PM after there was no apparent resolution to the interference all week long. The day before, one of the victim licensees contacted the Director of Public Works and spoke to him by telephone but to no avail. On Friday the City Administrator agreed to review the matter and requested through the PRA’s telephone contact a copy of the complaint. Copies were FAX’ed to Rockaway Township and the FCC. The City administrator had not gotten back to the PRA by 5:00 o’clock PM . There was no response from the Township which means GMRS licensees will have to endure a weekend of municipal interference to their systems because a clever unscrupulous radio shop in Rockaway decided to abuse the Family Radio Service with an illegal install.

The PRA’s complainant was interviewed on Friday December 14 and said, “Just prior to noon (a few hours), one of the users (snow plow drivers) played a rock song on the radio for short (02-:05) duration–At least 3 times. It seems they have little knowledge or regard to proper radio use. I also heard, over the last few days, the guys saying “10-4 Good Buddy” and other CB’isms. It sounded like this radio system was somewhat of a novelty to them.”

GMRS licensees and their families are now facing major winter weather over the weekend and may not have emergency use of their own radio repeaters - that they have a right to use as General Mobile Radio Service licensees. An unlicensed municipality has built an unconventional pirate-radio system to respond to Winter weather and in so doing has rendered licensed systems unusable. There may be other radio systems in New Jersey or New York that use 467.675 also experiencing interference.

GMRS licensees in Rockaway Township, NJ and any licensee impacted by the township’s unlicensed system are encouraged to contact the Mayor’s office by telephone to express their opinion on the matter. Please be polite, but ask that the operation on FRS 13 be immediately terminated. Lack of planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on our part.

UPDATE Sunday December 16, 2007

As the snow storm went through New Jersey this weekend the Township’s activity on Family Radio Service channel 13 continued. The Township continues to operate regardless of the interference they are causing innocent victims. You know that if the situation were reversed and citizens were interfering with a licensed city frequency the City Administrator would be on the phone immediately to the FCC demanding action. We can only wait and wonder while the snow plow crews play rock and roll on the radio and shout 10-4 good buddy!

The PRA has written an email to the Mayor, Louis S Sceusi,  in hopes an elected official will take a greater interest in the interference the township is causing.

Read this Wired article from 2006 about the proliferation of pirate FM stations in the United States. This activity and the wasted FCC resources assigned to cite or fine retailers of analog television sets is stopping the FCC from dealing with REAL radio fraud on GMRS. FM pirates you are wasting government resources!

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(Personal Radio Assn., Inc - Huntingtown, MD) A PRA Enforcement Team member in Virginia made the Association aware of a serious GMRS abuse. A company specializing in parking lot call boxes marketed call boxes designed for use on GMRS radio frequencies. A system in Virginia was found at a local school that used 462.575 MHz, a GMRS repeater output channel. The PRA asked FCC Special Counsel Riley Hollingsworth to investigate. PRA Board of Trustees President Doug Smith referred to this practice as a serious and “pernicious abuse” of GMRS. GMRS licensees throughout the United States are encouraged to monitor GMRS in their communities and listen for and report these devices. Hollingsworth told the PRA that the FCC has information that the GMRS parking lot call boxes are no longer sold. Despite this information a new system was heard from atop a repeater site covering the area around Culpepper Virginia the weekend of November 17, 2007. PRA monitors said it sounded like a new parking lot call box system was being tested. GMRS licensees in the area are actively looking for the unlicensed system which is already causing interfernece to licensed users of the General Mobile Radio Service. GMRS licensees can report commercial intruders on GMRS channels directly to the FCC or through the program set up up by the Personal Radio Association at http://www.praweb.org.

The following is a list of behaviors that are likely to attract enforcement attention in the General Mobile Radio Service. Nation wide, licensees that want and need to use the GMRS are fed up with the abusers of the service that make sharing almost impossible. Licensees are fighting back.

Some individuals and groups use GMRS like it’s a free band with no rules and no limits. Just like any radio service, the GMRS has FCC Rules (Part 95) to observe. On more than a few occasions, Amateur Radio enthusiasts have installed repeaters in the GMRS and operate on those repeaters in a manner they would never attempt to try in the Amateur service! Following the rules allows sharing of this tiny spectrum allocation among thousands of American GMRS licensees. There are only eight GMRS repeater pairs in the GMRS compared to hundreds in the Amateur service and Business Radio Services.

Review this list to see if you recognize your own behaviors. Do some introspection.

• Failure to or rarely using using your FCC assigned call sign as required in the rules and perhaps using only your own self-assigned unit numbers. Having multiple users engaging in the same behavior.
• Allowing unlicensed persons to use your GMRS repeater.
• Renting access to a GMRS system to licensed individuals or ineligible commercial users. In the case of licensed persons charging more than is necessary to recoup operating expenses without a profit.
• Monopolizing a GMRS frequency or frequencies over a wide geographic area.
• Camping on a GMRS channel. Chasing away other users claiming that since you were there first the frequency is yours. Setting all CTCSS and DCS tones to on, or telling others, “This channel is our emergency channel.”
• One way broadcasts, rebroadcasts, or alerts of public safety events. Public safety broadcasts are protected by the privacy laws contained in the Communications Act of 1934 as amended. Only broadcasters, and the citizen’s and amateur service are exempt from these provisions.
• Rebroadcasting NOAA weather alerts.
• Operating on an expired GMRS license.
• Operating as an ineligible commercial user e.g. a commercial pirate.
• Fraudulently obtaining a GMRS license.
• Operating a beacon Morse code ID’er. e.g. One that goes off every 15, 30, minutes automatically.
• Operating voice beacon or announcement style ID’ers.
• Operating using digital modes. (Voice inversion scrambling is not considered a digital mode.)
• Operating a repeater in the Family Radio Service (GMRS interstitials.)
• Operating on a GMRS repeater without permission or continuing to operate on a repeater after being asked not to do so by the licensee that owns the repeater.
• Busying out GMRS frequencies with Amateur Radio style drills or conducting frequent public service events.
• Ignoring FCC correspondence.
• Refusing to permit station inspection by the FCC Enforcement Bureau.
• Operating a GMRS repeater with the output in the GMRS and the input on a Part 90 frequency.
• Installing parking lot help boxes that illegally use GMRS channels.

There are behaviors that are rude or that annoy others.

• Ignoring or threatening other licensees that bring rule violations to your attention.
• Doing your best to stubbornly maintain your right to do as you please regardless of what the rules say.
• Repeater DX’ing during a tropospheric ducting event. GMRS is not ham radio. Why should we crowd GMRS with DX’ing?
• Endless chats on your repeater during a tropospheric ducting events. Bringing up several repeaters while chatting during these events and staying on the air anyway.
• Singing children, or children using GMRS in the course of play without adult supervision. Broadcasting music.

GMRS licensees are encouraged to take responsibility for the GMRS in their areas and just like any good neighborhood watch group report illegal behaviors that make using their radios for the intended purpose difficult.

(Plum Point, MD) A GMRS pirate with several radio users operating as an unlicensed ineligible entity was identified by the Personal Radio Association on the evening of Friday, September 28, 2007. The pirate was operating a GMRS repeater located in the vicinity of Cambridge, MD on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. As of Saturday morning the same organization is operating the illegal radio system despite having been warned that they are operating without a license and may cause serious interference to GMRS licensees. Radio operation is occurring at a park on the Choptank River.

An organizer of the Chesapeake Man Triathlon event in Cambridge, MD was contacted on his cellular telephone. He identified the Race Director as Robert Vigarito. A law enforcement agency on the Eastern Shore provided the telephone number. The contact the PRA spoke with refused to shut down the radio system or to call the radio company that rented them the system citing safety concerns as their event was already well underway and would continue on Saturday, September 29.

GMRS licensees in the DelMarVa area including other unlicensed persons using GMRS are requested to avoid interfering with the event’s communications on 462.675 MHz. The Columbia Triathlon Association, Inc, appears to be the victim of their radio provider as is the case with most instances like this one. The United States Coast Guard is providing law enforcement support on the river and the the Cambridge Police on land near Great Marsh Park. This is a large event. The pirate repeater may only be in operation one more day.

The PRA has filed an FCC complaint form regarding unlicensed use of GMRS by an organization ineligible to license in the GMRS naming the Columbia Triathlon Association and the radio company that rented the repeater to them. The radio company information was provided by the association organizer contacted by the PRA.

A GMRS Pirate is a person, organization, or business that operates two-way radios on the General Mobile Radio Service without having first obtained the required license from the Federal Communications Commission. Organizations and businesses have not been allowed to obtain GMRS licenses since 1989. Only a few grandfathered business users remain that have since renewed licenses obtained prior to 1989. The General Mobile Radio Service is regulated by Part 95 of the FCC Rules and Regulations. Individuals are permitted to obtain GMRS licenses for their personal business and that of their family.

An all too common GMRS piracy problem has existed across the United States for years. Radio companies seeking to avoid paying license fees and performing frequency coordination filings put temporary and even full-time customers on GMRS frequencies hoping no one will ever notice. This fraudulent practice was pernicious enough to encourage GMRS licensees across the United States to form the Personal Radio Association Inc., a Maryland not-for profit corporation. The PRA actively reports GMRS rules violations and unlicensed users to the Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau.

GMRS licensees authorized to use GMRS channels pay a license fee and observe radio regulations designed to facilitate channel sharing of the eight repeater frequency pairs allocated to the service. The business radio services have hundreds of channels to choose from but also have specific rules to follow under FCC Rules Part 90. It is not uncommon for a GMRS licensee to have spent thousands of dollars on their own repeater system that they in turn share with other area families. GMRS licensees are forbidden by rule to rent or to take any renumeration other than actual operating costs to/from others.

The unscrupulous radio companies rent radios on channels they are ineligible to use at the expense of those licensed to use the channels. When a local radio shop breaks the rules to put a pirate on the air the pirate is often uncooperative with GMRS licensees pretty much clueless and unaware of any rules or licensing regulations. Pirates typically operate with unacceptable radio practices causing harmful interference to licensed users of the same channels. Pirates are a persistent nuisance in the GMRS. More information on this topic can be found using our blogroll in the Bubble-Pack Pirate FAQ and GMRS Intruder Help. The PRA website is http://www.praweb.org

Oh, this one plays into so many stereotypes that if a movie scriptwriter composed this, it would be laughed away.

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The Republic of the Marshall Islands alerted their ship personnel in writing about Foreign Shipping Interference. The FCC is at work behind the scenes. This public document was found on the Internet. It is a WORD document. Link in the FSI links on this page.

————————————————————–

MARINE SAFETY ADVISORY NO. 34-06

The following was provided by the Enforcement Bureau of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission, District Director, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau has received complaints that foreign flag ships in United States ports are using radio transmitting equipment on frequencies between 462.550 MHz and 467.725 MHz. In the United States these frequencies are authorized for licensed land mobile radio users in the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS). To avoid causing interference to radio users licensed in the U.S., ships should avoid using these frequencies in U.S. waters.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) addresses this issue in the ITU Rules and Regulations with the following note: “5.288: In the territorial waters of the United States and the Philippines, the preferred frequencies for use by on-board communication stations shall be 457.525 MHz, 457.550 MHz, 457.575 MHz and 457.600 MHz paired, respectively, with 467.750 MHz, 467.775 MHz, 467.800 MHz and 467.825 MHz. The characteristics of the equipment used shall conform to those specified in Recommendation ITU-R M.1174.”

Foreign ships in U.S. territorial waters should use the preferred frequencies listed above and avoid using the frequency range from 462.550 MHz to 467.725 MHz.

Click to Read this Fox News Story: A Michigan man was arrested and charged with a felony by local police after officers responded to a complaint of a strange man parked in front of a coffee shop every day for a week at lunch time. This article should be read by everyone that uses wireless Internet on a regular basis. Had this man gone in the coffee shop the owner would have allowed him to use the free Wi-Fi access. Local law enforcement made the decision to charge the man with a Michigan law that forbids illegal access to networks including free ones.

(Huntingtown, MD 051107) It was only a matter of time. Late in the evening of 5/11/07 a foreign ship off loading liquid natural gas at the local LNG facility appeared on the input of GMRS repeater KAF9830 located at PopularWireless and PRA HQ, the home of PopWireless Editor and PRA Board of Trustee’s President Doug Smith. The ship was operating on 467.650 MHz, a frequency not authorized for use or even suggested for use in the USA by ships from other countries.

A call to the on-duty security officer at the LNG facility succeeded in the ship moving to 467.600 MHz. That frequency is also not mentioned in any foreign treaty as authorized for use in the United States. Another follow-up call to the security officer moved the ship to 467.675 MHz which caused no end of grief for a GMRS repeater believed to be in Pennsylvania.

This particular night, tropospheric ducting was evident. The transmissions from the ship, using CTCSS encoding, brought up a repeater hundreds of miles away. An unidentified operator of the victim repeater using only a made up three-digit unit number, (output 462.675) repeatedly demanded the identification of the ship’s radio operator who could not hear the enraged repeater operator. Interestingly, this repeater is one that is so far unidentified. The same operators are routinely heard during tropospheric ducting events failing to identify with GMRS call signs. It was odd that one potentially unlicensed operator/intruder was demanding the credentials of another!

The captain of the vessel registered on the Isle of Man and staffed by a UK crew claimed not to have the 457.525 MHz and 457.575 MHz treaty channels required for use in the United States. Our NTIA regulations require visiting ships to use those two 457 MHz frequencies and NOT the GMRS frequencies. “Should the ship indeed not have the required US operating channels - well that opens up a whole new can of worms. What do we do then?” said Doug Smith, owner of the Huntingtown, MD GMRS repeater.

The LNG facility is conducting an inquiry and Riley Hollingsworth was notified by email. The PRA knows the name of the ship and will ask the FCC to write the shipping company upon conclusion of the LNG facility investigation. That facility remained steadfast in its support of the local GMRS community. The PRA and Popular Wireless Magazine are dumbfounded that the promised assistance of the Coast Guard is having no apparent effect on the problem in ANY US port. “We never saw a copy of the completed inter-agency memo. We just understood specific text was prepared for such a memo, to be sent as directed by Kris Montieth Chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau. The FCC decided late in 2006 to no longer make certain enforcement letters and memorandum public,” smith said.

The acronym FSI was coined at PopularWireless Magazine to mean Foreign Shipping Interference or GMRS radio interference from foreign vessels improperly using GMRS repeater input or output channels while in US waters.

(Huntingtown, MD) - Despite continued attention to the problem by the PRA, and even an inter-agency memo from the FCC to the Coast Guard in October 2006 as a result of the PRA pushing back on the FCC, GMRS piracy remains a serious problem on the Chesapeake Bay.

In the first week of May 2007 foreign ships were heard operating on 467.600, 467.675, 467.550, and 467.575. Add this activity up with the crane operator in Dorchester County, MD illegally using 467.725 for crane/tower operations and you have one hell of a mess. Local repeater owner Larry Norris, KAE4617 regularly has vessel audio sneaking through squelch tails on his 462.575 system in Leonardtown, MD.

Only a very small part of the problem remains under control. One local industrial port managed by Dominion Inc. routinely works with local licensees to mitigate interference from ships docked at their facility. Dominion takes facility security and community security very seriously. Local licensees appreciate Dominion’s continued responsiveness. In today’s world getting and keeping the attention of a big company on a local problem is not always easy. Dominion remains a great neighbor.

FCC Special Counsel Riley Hollingsworth, at the direction of Kris Montieth FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief wrote the Coast Guard an inter-agency memo asking Coast Guard’s help in this matter. To date on the Chesapeake Bay between Plum Point and the Port of Baltimore the Coast Guard memo has had no apparent effect. A local source close to this problem said that as of January 2007 the local Coast Guard officer that routinely boards visiting vessels was completely unaware of any FCC communication regarding this issue. That was pointed out to the FCC.

PopularWireless does know that ITU Regulations clearly state that governments have the RIGHT to specify which radio frequencies are used by foreign ships visiting their ports. In the United States our NTIA specifies those frequencies as 457.525 and 457.575 MHz. Those same ITU regulations clearly state that foreign ships may NOT interfere with communications when visiting foreign ports and must identify their transmitters. Not one ship this weekend has identified with a call sign and none of them is doing their part to avoid interference to GMRS repeater operations in Southern Maryland. We do have to be fair to some boat captains. PRA monitoring of the above 457 MHz treaty frequencies does indicate some ships are using the allowed channels. Some ships however use those as well as channels in the GMRS.

Nationwide this has been a problem for twenty plus years. It was first written about at this magazine in the year 2000. (See the previous link for information updated in 2007.) The Personal Radio Association, Inc. still wants to hear from every victim of foreign shipping interference - FSI. In late 2006 a repeater owner in the New Orleans, LA area filed a PRA complaint against a prominent cruise line that used 467.575 in port causing severe interference to his repeater. While we have not seen a copy of the letter, Riley Hollingsworth told the PRA Enforcement Team that a letter was sent to the cruise line. Hollingsworth also said in emails to the PRA that letters were going out to various ports, Pilot associations, and addresses of foreign shipping associations that had already responded to the PRA in 2005.

Obtaining the cooperation of shipping companies, boat captains, and boat radio officers has not been easy. Routinely, attempts to communicate with vessels on the air are ignored. Sometimes the ships change frequencies but often they just change to another GMRS input. In Maryland the company that has had the greatest influence is again Dominion.

It remains a busy weekend on GMRS repeater inputs in Southern Maryland and the activity is not that of GMRS licensees. Along the Chesapeake, pirates rule the waves. Why this piracy problem is a homeland security issue with a private energy company and not with our national government remains a mystery.