Integrated Asterisk VoIP & Amateur Radio

[russellhltn]

Are you sure that's per family?

Yes.

Wikpedia link

From the link:
"adult individual who possesses a valid GMRS license, as well his or her immediate family members, including a spouse, children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and in-laws (47 CFR 95.179)"

[k0nod]

http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/index. ... ral_mobile

... is the source of info. on GMRS. (See below.) Get each related family together and pool your funds for a license. Don't count on finding a lot of repeaters - they are few and far between.

The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) is a land-mobile radio service available for short-distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of an adult individual and his or her immediate family members, including a spouse, children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and in-laws (47 CFR 95.179). Normally, as a GMRS system licensee, you and your family members would communicate among yourselves over the general area of your residence or during recreational group outings, such as camping or hiking.
The FCC grants five-year renewable licenses for GMRS Systems. The individual licensee is responsible for the proper operations of the licensed GMRS system at all times.

[thedqs]

Are you sure that's per family? When I read the license application, I understood it was per person/individual. (I had bought a pair of FRS/GMRS units at Wal-Mart, expecting the license to be priced more like the old CB station license I got years ago. My units have never been powered up and sit in a plastic bag until an emergency requires/allows their use.)

According to the FCC that license is per individual. The FCC states:

Available to an individual (one man or one woman) for two-way voice communication service to facilitate the activities of the individual's intermediate family members.

Now who can operate under that license is the entire family. Again from the FCC's site:

The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) is a land-mobile radio service available for short-distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of an adult individual and his or her immediate family members, including a spouse, children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and in-laws.

Since the license is for a system run by a single individual I deduced that your family members, under this license, can use the system after the $85 fee.

If you like the formal law set before you then in the FCC 47 CFR 95.179 we have who can operate the GMRS:

Subpart A_General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS)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.

Hope this clarifies the situation.

[russellhltn]

Don't count on finding a lot of repeaters - they are few and far between.

Not to mention:

1) The repeater owner may not appreciate your use without coordinating with them first.

2) Those radios you find at the mega-mart blister packs are not repeater capable. For that you'd probably have to track down a business class grade unit. (Typically a radio solid and heavy enough to double as a club in an emergency.)

[The_Earl]

Most blister pack radios are FRS / GMRS combo, and can be used on the FRS licensed bands w/o an $85 license.

I have some of these, and I wonder if their power is such that they always work under FRS regs.

Anyone have a line on the above mentioned repeater-capable clubs?

Thanks

[rmrichesjr]

Many thanks to all who clarified that a licensee's family (rather precisely defined) may operate a GMRS system. I guess I had missed that part of the fine print.

[russellhltn]

I have some of these, and I wonder if their power is such that they always work under FRS regs.

It depends on the radio, but most of them follow this pattern:

Channels 8-14 are FRS only. You should be safe here.
Channels 15-22 are GMRS only. You have to have a license to be there.
Channels 1-7 are shared FRS/GMRS channels. This is where it gets interesting. FRS allows up to 0.5W. GMRS allows up to 5W in a handheld (most cheap radios are at best 1W and rarely 2W.)

Some radios have a low power setting that limits the power to 1/2W. The question is, are you legal at low power in channels 1-7 without a license? Good question. The output may be FRS legal, but how is anyone going to prove that you weren't running high power? It's an enforcement nightmare.

Reading the FCC regs, it appears that simply operating a radio certified for GMRS use without a license is an infraction. (The regs do not address FRS/GMRS combo units. GMRS was before FRS. When the GMRS regs were written, if you used GMRS without a license, you were guilty - period.) Unfortunately, enforcement of GMRS license is non-existent so the question of unlicensed operation of FRS/GMRS radios has not been definitively settled. At least not as far as I've been able to find out.

[Greg@mcintoshcomm-p40]

I didn't mean for the post to push Motorola's Motorbridge, but rather, I was attempting to explain that there's a product that has the capability to give the Church some real power and ability to respond and mobilize inspite of the disparate communication systems and exist throughout the Church. Actually, there are several different products out there made by different manufacturers. I used Motobridge because it was the easiest to explain. Cisco has a solution like this as does JPS, EF Johnson, MACOM, Thales and many more.

In reply to the inability or illegal nature of being able to link a HAM radio to a patched system - we're talking about using these systems for emergency usage. The FCC has specified and it has been documented that in the event of an emergency, the rules go by the wayside in light of taking care of the safety of the public. I wouldn't plan on a practice of interconnecting a HAM radio to patched system, but I would definitely plan to at least have the ability to.

I also was recommending a solution that could serve the Church worldwide, rather than just the Utah areas. Keeping in mind that if we have a consistent solution that can work anywhere in the world, there's less training and more power to the end users and emergency coordinators at headquarters or at other areas in the world to actually do coordination and response rather than worrying about how they're going to get communications to the first and second responders as well as the direct people who are affected.

Also, because of the potentially small bandwidth abilities of some of these systems, even satellite data radios such as the magellian and others could be used to get a link into very remote areas to get command and control to the areas needing communications.

[Greg@mcintoshcomm-p40]

There are a few HAM repeaters out there owned by HAM clubs. As for conventional repeaters in the VHF (150-170 MHz) or UHF (450-470 MHz), there are a few out there, but 90% of them are trunking repeater systems that require a trunking radio that has been programmed to that system to access them. The conventional repeaters that are out there are primarily used locally at a business with a large area or a specific indoor area to cover. (ie: hotels, airport support, airlines, malls, industrial, schools etc)

To use a radios on a repeater that's not a HAM repeater, you have to have the repeater owner's permission and have your radio programmed up to those frequencies. Any GPRS radios that are out there are pre-programmed up with only the freqs for GPRS. You cannot add the frequencies at will.

I wouldn't use GPRS radios as part of my emergency plan. There are too many people that have them that will be using them within their families for their own communications. The likelihood of requiring them not to talk so you can do your coordination is very slim. It is in the best interests of everyone that emergency radios be either a commercial VHF or UHF radio that has a license and can easily communicate without congestion at will.

There are radios made that are front panel programmable. These can be used in an emergency use to talk to different radios with different frequencies. Motorola, Kenwood, King, and several other manufacturers make them. Having one or two of these located in a region could prove to be very helpful with giving centralized coordinators the ability to talk to everyone they need to.

[k0nod]

I agree. "Blister-pack" radios will be a nightmare in a disaster. Amateur is the best of all worlds, but MURS is a close second. Another thought... If a stake with a large geographical area were to go with the licensed GMRS solution, convincing a few families in each ward to get the license, they could build a mobile repeater to remedy the distance problem.

Equally important !!! It's not enough to have a quiver full of radios. We need to train the members on a regular basis how to respond in an emergency situation. Ask the local Ham Radio Club to share their educational resources, and in the process, learn what the local radio folk already have planned. When the local "Hams" learn about the LDS emphasis on preparedness, friendships and cooperation will naturally follow.