Steve, thanks for your very well thought-out and considered replies to the FCC. I wish more people would put forth the same effort for the good of our hobby. All of your suggestions are great EXCEPT the 'anything goes' modulation on CB, FRS, etc. Methinks doing that would cause SOME issues of incompatibility with regular ol' voice users.…
Steve, thanks for your very well thought-out and considered replies to the FCC. I wish more people would put forth the same effort for the good of our hobby. All of your suggestions are great EXCEPT the 'anything goes' modulation on CB, FRS, etc. Methinks doing that would cause SOME issues of incompatibility with regular ol' voice users. Perhaps allowing non-analog signals on only some channels? OTOH, any regulations for CB are a waste of time.
John - Thanks for your kind words. Keep in mind that FRS and the other services are pretty localized, so local consensus will emerge such as a GMRS repeater using digital modulation, and others that prefer to remain analog. Yes, it could be a bit messy in the short term, but I don't think the services, and the users, are being well served by retarding the available technology. We used to have the luxury of segmenting different technologies into different portions of spectrum - such as AM broadcast versus FM broadcast versus TV broadcast. But now, we don't have that luxury - ALL the spectrum is allocated. So just like the mobile phone industry adopted digital techniques, so I think these services (and the users, and the vendors) should, and will, adopt digital techniques, to their long term benefit. None of these consumer devices are so expensive that they can't be replaced (and other than GMRS repeaters, there's no expensive infrastructure) with units that perform better and offer more capabilities such as an FRS radio that uses digital modulation and a data function.
John - IIRC, LTE on Amateur Radio is already being done; I just cannot cite the source of that info at the moment. I think I reported on it in a previous ZR. LTE is a "bit heavy" (in my opinion) for Amateur Radio and the "citizen" radio services, with lots of protocol and overhead (the carriers want everything that happens on "their" spectrum to be potential billable events). But, certainly the underlying technologies such as OFDM are usable on Amateur Radio and the "citizen" radio services.
I've been pondering digital over FRS and I believe the key is a feature built into every radio I've seen CTCSS and DCS. Most FRS users just want to talk to their group anyway, so as long as you don't hear the burst, it should mostly work out.
I'll note that in northern Utah there is a P25 Repeater and a FM repeater on the same channel pair. So far it seems to work fine because there are only a few P25 users so they don't have to hear the FM users, and the FM users don't here them as long as they use CTCSS rather than just a PL tone to open the repeater.
Bill - I'm imagining filing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for selecting a UHF television channel and expanding FRS (including data) into that because FRS TX power is so low, and so narrow channel that they couldn't possibly cause any interference to over the air television now that it's digital and being transmitted in... Megawatts? If that channel ever does get reallocated to cellular, the low value of the FRS units are easily throwaway and there's no infrastructure (and thus no high powered expensive repeaters) to worry about.
Steve, thanks for your very well thought-out and considered replies to the FCC. I wish more people would put forth the same effort for the good of our hobby. All of your suggestions are great EXCEPT the 'anything goes' modulation on CB, FRS, etc. Methinks doing that would cause SOME issues of incompatibility with regular ol' voice users. Perhaps allowing non-analog signals on only some channels? OTOH, any regulations for CB are a waste of time.
John - Thanks for your kind words. Keep in mind that FRS and the other services are pretty localized, so local consensus will emerge such as a GMRS repeater using digital modulation, and others that prefer to remain analog. Yes, it could be a bit messy in the short term, but I don't think the services, and the users, are being well served by retarding the available technology. We used to have the luxury of segmenting different technologies into different portions of spectrum - such as AM broadcast versus FM broadcast versus TV broadcast. But now, we don't have that luxury - ALL the spectrum is allocated. So just like the mobile phone industry adopted digital techniques, so I think these services (and the users, and the vendors) should, and will, adopt digital techniques, to their long term benefit. None of these consumer devices are so expensive that they can't be replaced (and other than GMRS repeaters, there's no expensive infrastructure) with units that perform better and offer more capabilities such as an FRS radio that uses digital modulation and a data function.
Ah, Steve, you raise points I had not considered. Fork: LTE on the ham band(s)? Wow, what we could do!
John - IIRC, LTE on Amateur Radio is already being done; I just cannot cite the source of that info at the moment. I think I reported on it in a previous ZR. LTE is a "bit heavy" (in my opinion) for Amateur Radio and the "citizen" radio services, with lots of protocol and overhead (the carriers want everything that happens on "their" spectrum to be potential billable events). But, certainly the underlying technologies such as OFDM are usable on Amateur Radio and the "citizen" radio services.
Found the link - Amateur Cellular project (https://xcl.is). Bad news is that I found it in this article - https://www.openresearch.institute/2025/04/29/are-multi-carrier-data-modes-illegal-in-amateur-radio/.
I've been pondering digital over FRS and I believe the key is a feature built into every radio I've seen CTCSS and DCS. Most FRS users just want to talk to their group anyway, so as long as you don't hear the burst, it should mostly work out.
I'll note that in northern Utah there is a P25 Repeater and a FM repeater on the same channel pair. So far it seems to work fine because there are only a few P25 users so they don't have to hear the FM users, and the FM users don't here them as long as they use CTCSS rather than just a PL tone to open the repeater.
Bill - I'm imagining filing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for selecting a UHF television channel and expanding FRS (including data) into that because FRS TX power is so low, and so narrow channel that they couldn't possibly cause any interference to over the air television now that it's digital and being transmitted in... Megawatts? If that channel ever does get reallocated to cellular, the low value of the FRS units are easily throwaway and there's no infrastructure (and thus no high powered expensive repeaters) to worry about.