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#93826 - 12/04/08 02:17 PM
Connecting GMRS via VoIP
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KB3JCP
Regular Reader
Registered: 03/17/04
Posts: 25
Loc: Warminster Pa USA
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Hey ! Does anyone know were in FCC part 95 does say a GMRS repeater may or may not be tied into a computer VoIP network like Echolink ? Gee ! would be nice to talk by PC to an individual using radio just Amateur Radio?
I know that GMRS is a good service, but not experimental as the Amateur Radio Service.GMRS users need to be able to link repeaters to a VoIP system for EmComm. support. This way EmComm. Volunteers who are not Hams can do their job in same fashion,eventho GMRS is a limited service.
73
ADAM HUFFNAGLE
WQAI363
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#93828 - 12/04/08 05:29 PM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: KB3JCP]
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Mike Larson
Serious Reader
Registered: 06/14/05
Posts: 115
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Isn't there something about not connecting GMRS to the phone system, which many still use for their internet connections? You may want to do a search for VOIP here on this BBS, since I'm pretty sure it's been discussed ad nauseum...
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#93829 - 12/04/08 07:11 PM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: Mike Larson]
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Gary
Forum Big Guy
Registered: 09/30/99
Posts: 1543
Loc: Ohio
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Isn't there something about not connecting GMRS to the phone system......
95.141 Says " No station in a GMRS system may be interconnected to the public switched telephone network " I am sure the intent was to not have phone patches and little more.
There are many ways to interconnect via VOIP to a GMRS system without using a PSTN. Even if your ISP is via DSL to the phone company I see no issue using that.
_________________________
Gary Sanders
N8EMR
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#93831 - 12/04/08 09:07 PM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: Gary]
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rdunajewski
The Copy-n-Paste King
Forum Big Guy
Registered: 03/05/06
Posts: 1229
Loc: Edison, NJ
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Gary is right, a DSL connection, though using phone lines, is not considered part of the PSTN. You're going direct to the local phone company hub, and not through the switched system.
The only potential snag is using dial-up as your Internet source, because your data call is still going through a telephone switch to the access number you dial to.
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#93832 - 12/05/08 12:26 AM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: rdunajewski]
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Matthew McKenna
Monkeys make everying funny.
Big Shot Reader
Registered: 06/01/00
Posts: 4293
Loc: Watsonville, CA
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Sec. 95.179 Individuals who may be station operators.
(a) An individual GMRS system licensee may permit immediate family
members to be station operators in his or her GMRS system. Immediate
family members are the:
(1) Licensee;
(2) Licensee's spouse;
(3) Licensee's children, grandchildren, stepchildren;
(4) Licensee's parents, grandparents, stepparents;
(5) Licensee's brothers, sisters;
(6) Licensee's aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews; and
(7) Licensee's in-laws.
My interpretation of this rule is that as the station operator, you would not be allowed to have anyone other than those listed above to transmit. If you connected via VoIP (or more appropriate in this case RoIP, radio over IP), you as the station operator would have to control who has access. If you could do that with the IP link, then it passes the sniff test.
Sec. 95.1 The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS).
Source: 48 FR 35237, Aug. 3, 1983, unless otherwise noted.
(a) The GMRS is a land mobile radio service available to persons for
short-distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of
licensees and their immediate family members. Each licensee manages a
system consisting of one or more stations.
Again, immediate family members. Opening up your GMRS station for someone other than your immediate family doesn't pass the sniff test on this rule.
Sec. 95.3 License required.
Before any station transmits on any channel authorized in the GMRS
from any point (a geographical location) within or over the territorial
limits of any area where radio services are regulated by the FCC, the
responsible party must obtain a license (a written authorization from
the FCC for a GMRS system).
This rule means that you would have to control who has access to your system. You would need some sort of method to assure that only licensed GMRS operators could use it. But, if you figure in 95.1, you still couldn't open it up to anyone else other than "immediate family".
Sec. 95.33 Cooperative use of radio stations in the GMRS.
(a) Licensees (a licensee is the entity to which the license is
issued) of radio stations in the GMRS may share the use of their
stations with other entities eligible in the GMRS, subject to the
following conditions and limitations.
(1) The station to be shared must be individually owned by the
licensee, jointly owned by the participants and the licensee, leased
individually by the licensee, or leased jointly by the participants and
the licensee.
(2) The licensee must maintain access to and control over all
stations authorized under its license.
(3) A station may be shared only:
(i) Without charge;
(ii) On a non-profit basis, with contributions to capital and
operating expenses including the cost of mobile stations and paging
receivers prorated equitably among all participants; or
(iii) On a reciprocal basis, i.e., use of one licensee's stations
for the use of another licensee's stations without charge for either
capital or operating expenses.
(4) All sharing arrangements must be conducted in accordance with a
written agreement to be kept as part of the station records.
(b) [Reserved]
This rule seems to say that "sharing" a station is OK. I do believe that this rule is intended to allow sharing of repeaters, but it probably could be interpreted differently.
Sec. 95.103 Licensee duties.
The licensee is responsible for the proper operation of the GMRS
system at all times. The licensee is also responsible for the
appointment of a station operator.
This rule would mean that you would have to maintain control of your station at ALL times. That means you would need to monitor the station to be sure that the rules were being followed. When you were unable to monitor it's use, you would need to shut it down. This sort of precludes being able to set this up and walk away from it.
Sec. 95.119 Station identification.
(e) A station need not identify its transmissions if it
automatically retransmits communications from another station which are
properly identified.
This rule would mean that you wouldn't need to ID, but the users of the station over the RoIP link would need to do that. That reinforces the requirements that you would need to make sure that anyone that had access to this system be properly licensed for GMRS.
Sec. 95.171 Station operator duties.
When a GMRS station is transmitting, it must have a station
operator. The station operator must be at the control point for that
station. The same person may be the operator for more than one station
at the same time. The station operator communicates messages and
controls the station. The station operator must also cooperate in
sharing each channel with station operators of other stations.
The control point for the station could be argued as a point where the transmitter can be controlled. Since a RoIP link would just normally handle PTT, transmitted and recieved signals, the user at the end of the IP link wouldn't be able to power down the transmitter if the PTT became stuck. You could rely on a time out timer to solve this.
Sec. 95.183 Prohibited communications.
(12) Messages which are both conveyed by a wireline control link and
transmitted by a GMRS station;
Uh, so is a RoIP link considered wireline control???? I think so, but others may disagree. FCC would have final say. My feeling is that just because something is IP doesn't suddenly make it OK. Rules are rules, and no matter if it is analog audio, or audio converted to 1's and 0's, it's still the same thing. I think this rule alone would stand against any tie in to a phone line, internet link, etc. I could be wrong, but that is the way I see it.
One thing is for sure, the FCC rules regarding GMRS are a mess. Rules contradict each other, and some rules refer to other rules that no longer exist.
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#93835 - 12/05/08 08:18 AM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: Matthew McKenna]
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rdunajewski
The Copy-n-Paste King
Forum Big Guy
Registered: 03/05/06
Posts: 1229
Loc: Edison, NJ
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(a) The GMRS is a land mobile radio service available to persons for short-distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of licensees and their immediate family members. Each licensee manages a system consisting of one or more stations.
Again, immediate family members. Opening up your GMRS station for someone other than your immediate family doesn't pass the sniff test on this rule.
----
That implies repeaters are automatically restricted to those covered by your license and your license only.
As long as reasonable measures are taken to ensure a secure, monitorable system.. I see no major issues. A RoIP/VoIP link is no different than a repeater, in that a control operator must always be present. So when you go out of town, someone else legally has to be the control operator or you're supposed to kill the repeater, in theory. Who does that? No one.
There's no doubt the rules are all over the place, but no rule specifically bans it in any way. Through some creative engineering, all the standard Part 95 rules can be followed.
One thing I, and the FCC, are totally against, is using pre-packaged linking software like IRLP, EchoLink, or eQSO. For one, those are all Ham systems. A licensed Ham could unknowingly be transmitting on a GMRS system, and vice versa. Cross-service linking is a no-no, says the FCC. Additionally, using an unlicensed service like FRS or MURS allows a legitimate unlicensed user (fully legal on FRS or MURS) to unknowingly (or knowingly) transmit on a GMRS system. From their end, they're fully legit. From the GMRS end, they're transmitting unidentified and presumably unlicensed.
Using the Internet or WiFi (with access control) should be okay, provided that reasonable steps are taken to ensure only authorized users can access the system. If, say, you write your own VoIP program that emulates eQSO or Echolink, but has methods to allow only legit users, I see nothing prohibiting that.
I hardly think an audio stream would be considered a wireline control link in and of itself. If the transmitter end is using a VOX method to key the transmitter, the audio is not the actual controlling mechanism, it's just the qualifier.
Personally, I'm not in favor of linking systems in an effort to create wide-area systems (statewide or nationwide). If you're linking a handful of LOCAL machines with the intent to improve LOCAL coverage, there should be no problem. Linking from CA to FL is not a good use of the service, in my mind. Go play on Ham for that..
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#93837 - 12/05/08 09:00 AM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: rdunajewski]
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Matthew McKenna
Monkeys make everying funny.
Big Shot Reader
Registered: 06/01/00
Posts: 4293
Loc: Watsonville, CA
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I won't disagree with you, as I think the rules are open to a lot of interpretation. The FCC needs to get with the times and address some of these new capabilities. The rules still seem to be written from a 1980's world, or even earlier.
However, I do think that opening up GMRS to RoIP links sort of goes against the nature of GMRS. As Adam said in his original post, GMRS is not an "experimenters" service, that's what Ham is for. Now I know that RoIP isn't experimental anymore, it's as mainstream as anything else. I do think that the sprit of GMRS is for local communications. In emcomm world, I don't see a lot of need to link into a repeater from farther away than the repeaters coverage, but I guess there will always be an exception. I just think that we MAY be getting into an area where we are stretching the rules beyond what they were originally intended to be.
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#93838 - 12/05/08 09:51 AM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: Matthew McKenna]
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rdunajewski
The Copy-n-Paste King
Forum Big Guy
Registered: 03/05/06
Posts: 1229
Loc: Edison, NJ
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But how do we even know what the rules were intended to be, anymore? 
All in all, it really shouldn't matter at this point. Deregulate the service, let us keep 50 watts and repeaters, and let us do whatever we want within the allotted bandwidth. Oh, and Part 90/95 certification should still be required, we don't need experimentation -- there's enough out there already.
I'm sick of unjust restrictions in this country. You're not free to do what you want any more (no, I'm not advocating Anarchy here). Ham is starting to become restrictive too, in my opinion. You can't just throw a repeater up on a quiet frequency now, you have to coordinate. God help you if you're uncoordinated, too.. you might as well be running an illegal repeater as far as many Hams are concerned.
Rules are pointless if they're not enforced, or enforceable. They're just hurting legitimate users and do nothing to stop illegal users. It's like gun control laws.. let's ban guns and then we'll have no crime. Guess who has all the guns then? The criminals, who have always had them illegally. Law-abiding citizens are now punished. I see similar problems with the FCC and personal radio services.
Okay, excuse the rant.. I've got too much on my mind.
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#93839 - 12/05/08 09:53 AM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: Matthew McKenna]
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wenter99
Forum Administrator
Looooong-Time Reader
Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 2863
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(a) The GMRS is a land mobile radio service available to persons for short-distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of licensees and their immediate family members. Each licensee manages a system consisting of one or more stations.
Same applies to the popular misconception that If you have a GMRS license you can automatically appoint any of your immediate family members as a station operator, under your license, anywhere for any purpose.
...I just think that we MAY be getting into an area where we are stretching the rules beyond what they were originally intended to be.
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#93840 - 12/05/08 10:05 AM
Re: Connecting GMRS via VoIP
[Re: rdunajewski]
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wenter99
Forum Administrator
Looooong-Time Reader
Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 2863
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(a) The GMRS is a land mobile radio service available to persons for short-distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of licensees and their immediate family members. Each licensee manages a system consisting of one or more stations.
Again, immediate family members. Opening up your GMRS station for someone other than your immediate family doesn't pass the sniff test on this rule.
Yes it does, because in this instance the rules specifically say that YOU CAN allow other LICENSEES to use it... That's one of several clearly stated exceptions to the basic family rule, and it is spelled out.
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