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You read the article about a simple portable RDF antenna for the GMRS licensee. I also suggest that licensees have a small UHF Yagi on an antenna rotator at home. The antenna is connected to a radio with a signal strength meter at the operating location. This allows the licensee to take a bearing using this Yagi. The Scala Yagi pictured below was purchased on eBay. These are the antennas in use at PopularWireless HQ.
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.
Here’s what I learned investigating how to get more range (legally)! (PopWireless - It’s not every day we find good on-topic articles for GMRS but here is one. The writer even doesa a good job with licensing. Click read more and visit the blog at linquist.net)
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.
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!
(PopularWireless - Huntingtown, MD) Mom’s and dads should always remember that GMRS and FRS can be monitored by others on their cruise ship and on shore when close enough. Tonight the Grandeur of the Seas went by. A mom was telling the kid the night’s schedule and then what mommy and daddy were planning for the next hour - a long shower. Anyone listening would have known where the kids are, what they were doing, how long mom and dad were going to be and perhaps how attentive they might be during the shower. The magazine has written before on the do’s and do nots of using family oriented two-way radio. We cannot over emphasize the utility two-way radio provides but we also have to remind everyone to use good common sense. In this family’s case it might have been better to sit down with the kids before they left the state room and share the night’s organizational details. Tonight the humor was in the details. Happy sailing!
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.
There are behaviors that are rude or that annoy others.
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.
(Old News) The manufacturer’s take over of GMRS began with the creation of the twenty-two channel bubble pack. In 2003 TWICE chronicled the major shift by the big guns in the consumer radio toy industry to the bubble packs from real FRS radios.It’s old news but today’s GMRS licensees should never forget. This was written almost five years ago when the manufacturers made the business decision to forget about GMRS licensing and full speed ahead with the confusing bubble-pack.
Two way radios can add thousands of dollars to your bottom line. Selecting the proper walkie-talkie system is crucial. There are four basic elements to consider in choosing the right 2-way radios: VHF vs UHF, Power, # of Channels, and Durability. Here’s how to choose the right two-way radios for you and your business. (Click read more below to read the article referred to.)
(PopWireless: This is article is written only with a partial understanding of the truth. This article is vague enough to convince us the writer really has not read the FRS FCC Rules. The only thing the writer got right was that many of the bubble-pack toys made today are toys when compared to real commercial quality radios. That advice is excellent. Toys do not hold up in business environments. Where the article flops is in licensing information. It doesn’t even begin to deal with the confusion created by the Federal Communications Commission when they unilaterally approved the infamous twenty-two channel bubble pack.
The FCC fully expected and supports businesses using the Family Radio Service. There is no license required to use Family Radio Service radios. That has been in OUR FAQ since day one. There is only ONE FRS radio left on the market that we know of (There may be one other type sold with a life vest. Read our blog) and that is the ICOM model discussed in this blog in another article. All of the other so-called “FRS” radios out there are the twenty-two channel hybrid radios or bubble-pack radios. These radios, according to the FCC website are technically GMRS radios that have FRS capability and that capability is FRS channels eight through fourteen.
Manufacturers have design the majority of these twenty-two channel toys so that the the channels formerly known in FRS radios as channels one through seven are at GMRS power levels. FRS was carved out of the General Mobile Radio Service. FRS one through seven were always portable and small-base station frequencies in the GMRS. FRS 8-14 are channels in-between the eight GMRS repeater input frequencies. The GMRS rules allow up to five watts ERP (Effective Radiated Power) on what have always been known as the GMRS interstitials. The only true license-free channels in most twenty-two channel bubble-pack radios are the last seven FRS channels. Seven out of twenty two. Seven out of twenty two require a GMRS license and those are considered GMRS channels not FRS channels.
We do agree that business is better served using real two-way radios. Radios that are built tough and built for long service.)
Just in time for hurricane season, worlds first Crank Powered FRS/GMRS radio.
(PopWireless: It still requires an FCC license to use on GMRS channels. We have not seen this radio so we cannot say we have reviewed it. We do however like the concept!)
read more | digg story
(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
ICOM did what Motorola, Cobra, and RadioShack did not do and that was continue to market a license-free Family Radio Service two-way radio for families. The others might all refer to the GMRS/FRS hybrids as FRS radios but we all know that is not true. The companies that sell twenty-two channel hybrids are all bargaining that the FCC declares GMRS license free by rule. ICOM, however, is living up to its name as a real and quality-radio company with a serious concern for the radio services as each currently exists under the FCC Rules. ICOM is selling a real Family Radio Service radio. No license required.
When the FCC OET unilaterally authorized the twenty-two channel bubble-pack radio with no objections from the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau the assault on the General Mobile Radio Service began. It was the first time in history that a licensed radio service was combined with an unlicensed radio service. What did the FCC expect the major national retailers to do? Wow what a gift! We believe the FCC expected and even anticipated what has actually happened. The assault on the General Mobile Radio Service was planned by American marketers on behalf of off-shore manufacturers and executed by the bureaucrats of the FCC in Washington D.C. It was all about economy building.
The moment the twenty-two channel bubble-pack radios hit the market GMRS was doomed and the FCC knew it and frankly didn’t care. They decided long ago GMRS should be licensed by rule whether or not the individuals licensed to use GMRS had a chance to publicly argue the merits of the move. Walk into a local retailer and ask them if a license is required to use any of the channels in the twenty-two channel bubble packs. We believe the majority will say no or tell the customer that no one will care. Ask the retailer if a school or business is allowed to use the twenty-two channel bubble pack and the answer will be sure no problem! Most retailers now have no clue that the ONLY license-free channels in most twenty-two channel bubble-pack radios are FRS channels eight through fourteen. There are actually SEVEN FEWER license-free channels in the GMRS/FRS hybrid bubble-packs!
Do not suggest that the market place made the decision, that the hand writing was on the wall. or that at the end of the day it’s what the people wanted. This was planned and executed before a GMRS advocacy group like the Personal Radio Association, Inc. could object on behalf of GMRS licensees. People always want something for nothing. Manufacturers and retailers gave away something that did not belong to them because no one was there to object. This was ultimately a for-profit spectrum grab, nothing more nothing less. A grab that the FCC thought was cool! This was one spectrum grab the government bureaucrats felt was socially acceptable so they engineered a way for it to come true for all radio retailers - eventually.
Had the truth been told to the customer at the point of sale, and had stores observed the licensing laws the big three could have continued to sell license-free radios and license-required GMRS radios. That idea was never explored. The nation might now be building new nation-wide GMRS radio repeater systems. Imagine if the public had access to radio systems other than subscription cellular service. Families could be using radio repeaters, base stations, mobile radios, and hand-held radios in national parks, state parks, amusement parks, tourist areas and even in America’s neighborhoods. The American public believes a cellular subscription is necessary to communicate effectively and exclusively with family members!
Keeping the license-free FRS radios would have meant that a TRUE license-free option was available for families desiring simple no-hassle personal radio communication. Instead we now have interminable interference problems in the GMRS related to the illegal use of the twenty-channel bubble packs radios by everyone and anyone. Families have no clue how to use their new GMRS hybrid radios or how to comply with licensing laws.
The retailers - AMERICAN BUSINESS EXECUTIVES made the choice to co opt GMRS. This was a move to do the wrong thing looking at future business quarters of climbing profits. The retail industry had its eyes on GMRS and they were taking it over. Their fingers were crossed behind their backs and the FCC was giving them the wink.
Interestingly enough the FCC OET and WTB did not approve requests for a dual band LICENSE-FREE radios using MURS and FRS! Draw your own conclusions. We DO NOTE that OET approved a marine VHF radio with FRS included but not before the Personal Radio Association objected through channels to rumors of a combined marine GMRS/FRS combo units. Mark our words. We believe that that the Marine/FRS combo radios are going to appear on the nations ski slopes. The FCC OET has opened Pandoras box and now the Marine Radio Service is in serious trouble. The public is going to ASSUME that the license free FRS channels mean using the marine channels on land is no big deal either! You guessed it. Using marine channels on land is not legal unless you have a special license to permit such operation.
Thousands of licensees in the General Mobile Radio Service who have millions of dollars invested in their family communication or personal-family-business systems do care. I believe that every licensee takes notice of ICOM being the only major radio manufacturer still selling a license-free Family Radio Service two-way radio. Every licensee that has ever given up trying to communicate with a family member because little Johnny and Sally were using the GMRS Mr. Microphone to sing silly songs cares a lot. We think ICOM rocks!
In a way it makes sense. I own quite a bit of ICOM’s stuff. Two R8500 receivers and an ICOM 756 PRO III at the high end and a hand-held ICOM GMRS radio at the low end. Their radios have always impressed me as has their customer service. It just doesn’t get any better than ICOM! A company with this kind of quality would as a matter of course do the right thing by the laws of the United State.
Thanks to Motorola, Cobra, Audiovox, and RadioShack American consumers no longer have lots of license-free FRS radio options. Now it’s a trust issue. You sell the 22-channel bubble pack radio and cross your heart that your customer will only use SEVEN of the 22 channels to stay legal. It is absurd. Only seven of the of the channels in most of these radios are actually license free and those channels are FRS 8-14. FRS 1-7 in a bubble pack are often now at GMRS power levels making the channel ineligible as a license free channel.
By the way, not one of the radios we are talking about is even made in the United States. The 22-channel bubble pack boom never benefited anyone BUT foreign manufacturers and the pocket books of US based marketing folks.
None of the major retailers ever bought into helping build GMRS the right way. The little guys under them like AudioVox and Garmin followed in lockstep pushing the 22-channel radios which have devastated the GMRS with horrendous interference levels in urban areas. The FCC is marching alongside. While license applications have gone up and continue to rise the numbers don’t equal radio sales. Humans follow the path of least resistance just like electrons. Most people will not (and have not) license a 22-channel bubble pack.
We think that individuals, businesses, or organizations considering the purchase of license-free radios should consider the ICOM FRS radio before any other. You can use it without a license. You will not be tempted to operate without a license and if you want to upgrade the licensed radio service will still be there waiting for you. Truth be told, the higher powered bubble packs do not provide the significant mileage claimed by the manufacturers. That is unsupported marketing hype. It always has been and always will be marketing hype. Dropping the license free radios and manufacturing only 22 channel bubble packs was also a marketing decision. One that focused on the future - asking the FCC to license GMRS by rule. A future that we believe will doom GMRS to the same fate as CB radio.
We might already be doomed but until then we think you should buy ICOM FRS if you need a license-free option. You can choose your own ICOM dealer or our preferred ICOM dealer, PopularWireless advertiser NSI Communications. We suggest that RadioShack redeem their own reputation after having helped create FRS by selling a REAL FRS radio and then properly train all of their employees. Retailers should STOP referring to the GMRS hybrids as FRS radios! These are NOT FRS radios they are GMRS radios that require a license for FIFTEEN out of the twenty-two available channels. Signs in stores should tell customers that an FCC license is required and that there is a fee. Until then contact NSI Radio. NSI is the the dealer doing the right thing by the GMRS community and the FCC Rules.
The ICOM IC-4088 is still available:
With rapid charger $145
With overnight charger $124
Radio only, no charger $95
ICOM is a TOP manufacturer of two-way radio equipment and systems. This radio is not a GMRS chew toy. It is a quality product that will give you or your organization excellent service and utility. NSI Radio is ready to take your orders so you can stay license free!
There are many areas of the United States still considered rural and very rural. Residents are isolated from civilization and often each other by choice. Living this way can present communications difficulties when land-line or cellular telephone services break down in inclement weather or, perish the thought, don’t exist at all.
The General Mobile Radio Service can be a viable communication tool in rural areas particularly if neighbors build a radio system together. Multiple families can purchase and install a repeater system with back-up battery power to use in the event of a communications outage. During the rest of the time the two-way radio system serves to link families and friends for social and business purposes. The family radio is a link to another family group since neighbors often count upon each other just for company as well for emergencies.
This is where everyone is reminded that the GMRS is more than just the two-way radio chew toys for sale at big-box stores. GMRS can be a sophisticated yet easy to use communication option complete with base stations, mobile units and hand-held radios. Let’s look at some possibilities.
The Family Farm
GMRS is a radio service that the licensee can use to conduct his or her personal business. As long as the licensee allows his or her immediate family to use the radio system and not unlicensed employees the family farm or ranch can use the GMRS system for the family business. Individual employees not related to the licensee can use the same system as long as they too are licensed and use their FCC assigned call letters.
The General Store
Wouldn’t it be great if you could call your general store on the two-way radio to give them your shopping list? As long as the store owner and his family have a GMRS license he or she can use their radio to chat with customers, friends and family.
Rural Churches
Rural pastors can use GMRS to stay in touch with the flock as long as each family has the appropriate GMRS license. Rural churches are important centers of activity and support for families living in isolation. As long as everyone (individuals) are licensed properly members of the church could sponsor and share a local GMRS repeater so that everyone in that area had a lifeline to one another.
Travel in Rural Areas
There might be cellular coverage problems traveling in rural areas that GMRS could solve. A well placed local system might provide families with communications on long or potentially hazardous local road trips in rural areas. Where conventional communication fails a GMRS system built by neighbors might provide two-way radio communication to people that travel.
Your own monitoring network.
It is certainly conceivable that neighbors who count on one another could establish a local monitoring schedule so that anyone traveling actually had someone to talk to. When you set the expectation it is a very good idea to make sure someone is actually ready to respond. It might not hurt to get important local folks licensed and equipped with a GMRS radio so that communication is even more meaningful. How about the local sheriff’s deputy and his family, local volunteer firefighters and medical personnel and maybe eve the country doctor. As long as these individuals license as individuals they can use the GMRS to be part of the community back-up system.
Perhaps this is why I never recall hearing an Australian registered vessel on US General Mobile Radio Service channels while the ship is in US waters. Even the FCC regulations are not this precise. Thank you Australia!
This paragraph is taken from Australian radio regulations: (Word file)
2.5 Operation outside Australia
(1) The licensee of a maritime ship station operating outside the territorial sea of Australia must operate the station in accordance with:
(a) the Radio Regulations; and
(b) if the station is in the territorial sea of another country — the radiocommunications requirements of the country.
(2) If a maritime ship station is to be operated outside Australia on a frequency specified in the Manual for use by the Maritime Mobile and Maritime Mobile-Satellite Services, published by the International Telecommunication Union and as in force from time to time, the licensee must only operate the station to communicate with one of the following stations:
(a) a coast station operated in another country;
(b) a coast earth station operated in another country;
UNIDEN now offers the MHS550 Marine radio with the license-free Family Radio Service channels. This very unique dual-band VHF-UHF radio gives a boater the ability to use marine VHF for essential boating safety communication and his or her family the ability to chat about family activities on the water or on land without worrying about the on-the-water-only operation restrictions of VHF marine (See FCC Rules Part 80) or the license requirements of a twenty-two channel General Mobile Radio Service radio. (See FCC Rules Part 95) Compared to most of the bubble-pack 22-channel radios the boating family will have fourteen channels on which to operate without a license instead of the seven available on most new 22-channel bubble-pack GMRS radios. The bubble-packs, as they have come to be known, offer a GMRS power level on FRS channels one through seven since the licensed GMRS service allows up to five watts Effective Radiated Power on FRS 1-7. Those channels are actually part of the GMRS shared with FRS. Marketing and sales deficiencies of major retailers over the years since the FCC’s unilateral approval of the 22-channel bubble packs have made unwitting radio pirates of many families using 22-channel bubble pack radios. Uniden has given families back that piece of mind that the radio in use is legal to operate on FRS without a license. It was the right thing to do. You can purchase the radio on line at RadioShack.com.
(Huntingtown, MD) It is possible to identify an in-transit ship as the most likely source of FSI (Foreign Shipping Interference) in the GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service.) Using an AIS - Automatic Identification System receiver and a directional antenna the signal from ship’s AIS transponder will tell you the ship’s name, it’s ITU MMSI registration, call sign, country of registration and destination. Using the MMSI look up at the ITU you can determine what company owns the ship.
On the Chesapeake Bay near Plum Point, MD the PopularWireless AIS receiver has so far identified three ships using GMRS channels while in US waters. Vessels from Norway, Vanuatu, and Singapore are currently on the Foreign Shipping Interference Log. The Norwegian vessel was docked and easily identified with a directional Yagi antenna at some twelve miles distant. The ships from Vanuatu and Singapore passed PopularWireless on the Chesapeake Bay and each was followed with the directional antenna as they sailed by.
The requirements are pretty simple but there is an investment in equipment. The first AIS receiver was an ICOM IC-R8500 receiver. A wide variety of inexpensive scanner receivers can be used as long as the one selected can be modified to take audio directly from the radio discriminator. The receiver was changed that to an SR-161 AIS receiver purchased for $189 from Milltech Marine. The power requirements are very low. An older three-amp power supply was used successfully. The antenna is a VHF antenna with LMR400 cable at about 60 feet above sea level and of course the higher the better. Use good low-loss feed line. The SR-161 serial data from is connected to a computer with Ship Plotter software installed. The switch to serial data from an audio feed to the sound card restored another analog audio input on the computer used for recording ship transmissions on the unauthorized channels also via the ICOM R-8500. The ShipPlotter software is about $30. The payment is processed in Europe so the price is up and down a bit based on the current exchange rate.
Using the ShipPlotter software you can super impose the ship on marine navigation charts or photographs from Google Earth. It is possible to zoom in on a chart to determine where a ship is berthed or moored. A bearing from the chart to your location can be compared to the bearing determined from the directional antenna. ShipPlotter has an active Yahoo Group where the program author and active users provide some support for users of the software. It is even possible for a group of licensees to create their own server and share local data using this product.
Now if you don’t have the cash to purchase an AIS receiver you can purchase the AIS software at Shipplotter.com and watch the feeds from various ports around the United States. There are many ShipPlotter users sending regular data on many US ports that a GMRS licensee could use to help identify Foreign Shipping Interference from a ship illegally using GMRS channels in US waters. Ports in Delaware, Virginia, Texas, California, Washington, and even the Great Lakes are covered. Licensees will also find that many other websites that display AIS ship data on line. Another good one is ShipPlotting.com.
Once the name and owner of the ship is known the GMRS licensee can attempt to contact the ship owner directly by email or mail. My first attempt to contact a ship owner in Singapore was unsuccessful. This did not surprise me given the lack of cooperation from ship’s Captains I have encountered on both coasts. Should the licensee be unsuccessful, a Personal Radio Association GMRS Interference form can be completed (available at PRAWEB.ORG) and sent to the FCC GMRS address in Gettysburg (See Part 95) directly or through the PRA along with the AIS data and the directional methods used to verify the source of the radio signals was the ship in question.
Licensees curious what ships are in or around the area of Southern Maryland can check the AIS Map of the Chesapeake Bay generated at PopularWireless HQ through the courtesy of Shipplotter AIS software and unique scripts written by Shipplotting.com.
At PopularWireless two ICOM-R8500’s and one RadioShack PRO-2006 monitor GMRS, FRS, and international shipping frequencies to assist in the identification of FSI. On any complaint audio files can be recorded and sent to the offending company as evidence. All three scanners are controlled by Spectrum Manager, a ScanStar product. Spectrum Manager is an outstanding product and is very useful for this purpose. A PC audio card conversion to the M-Audio Delta 1010LT purchased from SweetWater will allow recording up to eight computer controlled radio receivers.
(Huntingtown, MD 080307) - GMRS is not Ham radio. It is also not the private playground of hobby buff groups, long-winded super heroes with a delusional sense of self importance, or national public service organizations that consider family communication unimportant on their own radio-activity scale. But today I wondered.
Tropospheric ducting is in big time this morning. I can hear the illegal periodic Morse ID’s from free-running automatic GMRS repeaters and then comes the DX’er from Virginia. In a blaze of glory and with great enunciation and fanfare he announces his call sign, his national public service affiliation complete with unit number (in the single digits wow!) as though it gives him some special right to access a repeater for which he happens to have the squelch access tone — a repeater hundreds of miles or more distant. He’s DX’ing! (Amateur radio lingo for talking by radio to distant stations.) Woo hoo! Look at me I can talk long distances on a radio intended for short distance family communication! Wowee zowee!
It’s one thing to be using your GMRS radio and find that during tropo you are accessing the wrong or multiple repeaters. It’s another to go fishing for QSO’s. The multiple repeater problem occasionally happens to me and my wife as we use a local 575 repeater. When we find ourselves bringing up more than one repeater we leave the air very quickly so as not to compound the obvious interference problem.
Today, the entire East Coast of the United States of America had to listen to what amounted a Ham radio QSO on 462.550 MHz between two hams that happen to also use GMRS.
I believe that hams should take advantage of UHF tropo on 440, 220 or 2 meters. Hams have MORE THAN ENOUGH SPECTRUM to enjoy their hobby. That said how about knocking off the repeater DX’ing done solely for self aggrandizement and curiosity. It makes you look foolish and silly and it accomplishes nothing, nada, zip. You make it harder for the rest of us and our families to use our family communication systems.
When tropospheric ducting is active, GMRS licensees should make a conscious decision to reduce their talk time with their local users. Keep transmissions to the point, communicate and leave the air. Use common sense. Be polite. Remember that our rules require all of us to share a VERY TINY resource among thousands of families, and hundreds of UNCOORDINATED repeaters and simplex operations. If you can be heard across thousands of square miles while you discuss the health of a mutual acquaintance maybe you shouldn’t be talking!
I’d like to know what others think of this. Should we add an item to the PRA GMRS Operator’s Code of Ethics that spells it out? What should our reaction be?
It is hard to take the national public service groups seriously while their members and leadership are DX’ing on GMRS. Those groups should consider a POLICY STATEMENT forbidding repeater DX-ing and insisting their members follow the GMRS rules. It’s the courteous thing to do.
Flash! A repeater owner in New York state sent the blog a recording of this same person’s access to the New York repeater. Hard to believe.
