Posted: 4/18/2012 6:36:24 PM EDT
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Hey everyone I have a Newbie question.
So I am looking at buying a few radios to have around the house for SHTF and emergency situations. My friends would have the same or similar radios at their homes. We are looking at BK, motorola, icom, etc. My question is what are the legalities of using the radios? If I programmed in a channel that wasn't used locally is this ok to use or do I need a license? I am new to this radio stuff and would welcome any help. Thanks for your time. |
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if its just around the house whats wrong with FRS radios? Nothing. I am just interested in the other radios. Longer range, more power, etc. Plus I want to be able to monitor fire/ems from the radio. anything for the civi market is going to limit you to power unless you get some licenses. MURS is limited to 2w, FRS is limited to .5mw and cant have a removable antenna, GMRS is about the best thing smoking but requires a license and can have HT's up to 5w and have better antennas and you can even setup repeaters. the problem with it is unless everyone you want to talk to lives with you they too have to have a license which at this time is $85. there is talk of the FCC getting rid of the license requirement but as with anything relating to the .gov it will be a while probably before it goes through. with amateur radio, everyone has to have a license which can be free up to $15 or so depending on where you can find a test site. my tech was free but my general cost me $15 because i went to a different club/test site for it. if i had gone back to where i got my tech, it would have been free. cost of gear as well as programming can be an issue depending on what radio service you chose. Pro gear, most of the time, will have to be programed by a shop and you will be limited to how many freq's you can have because of how many CH's the radios have. |
| Thanks for the reply. So if I under stood correctly I would have to have a license to use the radio's no matter what the situation, disaster, emergency, etc? If I get a license and find a channel that is not used locally by fire and ems can I use it as long as it is not over a repeater? Or how does that work? |
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Thanks for the reply. So if I under stood correctly I would have to have a license to use the radio's no matter what the situation, disaster, emergency, etc? If I get a license and find a channel that is not used locally by fire and ems can I use it as long as it is not over a repeater? Or how does that work? If it is a life-threatening emergency, you are permitted to use any means at your disposal. That being said, I never recommend buying radios with the intent to only use in the case of an emergency when licensing requirements go away. Where you able to determine the frequency ranges in which your local LE/EMS operate? Few professional grade radios will do more than one band. |
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Just my two cents, but, simplex isn't much better than FRS. If you plan on only using unallocated frequencies in your area just buy an FRS type radio and save yourself the money.
If you are really looking for something with some range, get your Tech license, it is rather easy to study for and get into a repeater/ham group. |
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to add what has been shared, The Can't Fail Sticky Thread is a great place to start followed closely by the Monster known as the 101 thread .
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Buying a radio for "emergency use only" is like buying a gun for "emergency use only". You need to become familiar with your radio now so you'll know its capabilities then.
That means getting a license-free radio (CB, FRS, MURS) or getting a license (Amateur, GMRS) and a corresponding radio. I certainly wouldn't plan on using Public Service frequencies in an emergency. |
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Thanks for the reply. So if I under stood correctly I would have to have a license to use the radio's no matter what the situation, disaster, emergency, etc? If I get a license and find a channel that is not used locally by fire and ems can I use it as long as it is not over a repeater? Or how does that work? If it is a life-threatening emergency, you are permitted to use any means at your disposal. That being said, I never recommend buying radios with the intent to only use in the case of an emergency when licensing requirements go away. Where you able to determine the frequency ranges in which your local LE/EMS operate? Few professional grade radios will do more than one band. I am looking at the Bendix King Handhelds. Our local channels are public knowledge and are posted on the internet. Most of those channels are Narrow banded |
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to add what has been shared, The Can't Fail Sticky Thread is a great place to start followed closely by the Monster known as the 101 thread . I looked through those but it was all information that was foreign to me. Im learning bear with me. |
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Buying a radio for "emergency use only" is like buying a gun for "emergency use only". You need to become familiar with your radio now so you'll know its capabilities then. That means getting a license-free radio (CB, FRS, MURS) or getting a license (Amateur, GMRS) and a corresponding radio. I certainly wouldn't plan on using Public Service frequencies in an emergency. I use the king radios everyday. I am quite versed in their operation. |
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I am looking at the Bendix King Handhelds. Our local channels are public knowledge and are posted on the internet. Most of those channels are Narrow banded I have little experience with King Radios. I thought about picking up a front panel programmable EPH or LPH VHF at one point but never got around to trying to figure out all the factory bandsplits and get one that was ham capable. While your local EMS/LE channels are public knowledge, chances are very slim that you can find a radio that will be able to monitor those channels and monitor/tx on ham allocations unless your local public safety activity is UHF near the 70cm ham band or VHF near the 2m ham band. |
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I am looking at the Bendix King Handhelds. Our local channels are public knowledge and are posted on the internet. Most of those channels are Narrow banded I have little experience with King Radios. I thought about picking up a front panel programmable EPH or LPH VHF at one point but never got around to trying to figure out all the factory bandsplits and get one that was ham capable. While your local EMS/LE channels are public knowledge, chances are very slim that you can find a radio that will be able to monitor those channels and monitor/tx on ham allocations unless your local public safety activity is UHF near the 70cm ham band or VHF near the 2m ham band. That I am not sure of. Like I said I am pretty new to this and am learning more everyday. |
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EPH or GPH are the models I am looking at.
It looks like these cover 148-174 MHz. So they wouldn't work on the 2m amateur band (144-148 MHz), but they should work on the MURS frequencies (151.820 MHz, 151.880 MHz, 151.940 MHz, 154.570 MHz, and 154.600 MHz). Don't know if they're type-accepted for MURS though. |
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EPH or GPH are the models I am looking at.
It looks like these cover 148-174 MHz. So they wouldn't work on the 2m amateur band (144-148 MHz), but they should work on the MURS frequencies (151.820 MHz, 151.880 MHz, 151.940 MHz, 154.570 MHz, and 154.600 MHz). Don't know if they're type-accepted for MURS though. What do you mean by type-accepted? I have seen king radios modified to go down to 144MHz. I am not sure how to do it but it is possible. |
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What do you mean by type-accepted? A radio has to be type-accepted for the service it's used it. Part 90 = Business/Public Safety Part 80 = Marine Band VHF Part 95 = Personal Radio Services etc etc etc Radios build and sold for the amateur bands have to be type-accepted as well, but hams can build their own radios or modify radios from other services for the ham bands (like old commercial which required retuning to cover 144-148). Many radios are used on the marine/MURS/GMRS bands which are Part 90 certified. As long as the radio meets the specs per channel (narrowband on the three lower MURS channels, etc) then I see no issue with it but "The Man" might (say if you insist on running 110w on MURS ch-1 outside a walmart when they used to use that channel  ).
Just about every BK can go into the hamband, a google search would probably find the info you need. Repeater Builder always has good info http://www.repeater-builder.com/bendix-king/b-k-index.html Here is a post from "Mancow" (a guy who knows of what he speaks) on batlabs. http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16833 I will take a shot at it from what I know of the E series stuff. The BK series requires two pins to be shorted on the side mic connector while simultaneously holding down the FCN key. The display will prompt for a password. It's a 6 digit number that is defaulted to all 0s in new radios. The older non E series (L) series just went straight to the programming and bypassed the password if I recall. After entering the password you hit ENT. The radio shows Ch 0. From there a press of the FCN key rotates through groups of codes. 1-12345 2-12345 3-12345 and display options for the light if that keypad is installed The first group deals with priority types, priority fixed, priority follows channel etc.... plus other things. I have the list but don't recall the specifics. The third group deals with display settings I believe. If you FCN past these you go back to Ch 0, hit 1 and ENT then it takes you to channel 1. Hit FCN again and the RX freq. is displayed and can be edited. If you change it you must hit ENT to save it. It then shows the signalling screen. 0.0 in CSQ. It's very simple if you want a PL of 127.3 then just hit 1273 and that's it! If you want a dcs you hit either * or # and it changes to the DCS mode. Again, you just key in the number. Another button (#,* FCN or something I don't recall) changes it to inverted DCS if you need it. From there the screen changes to the TX field and the programming is exactly the same from there. The last screen is the Alpha text. If you want to edit the name you use the PRI key to step through the characters and then hit FCN to advance to the next space. When all done it loops back and shows Ch 1. Hit PRI or the channel number and you are ready for the next one to be edited. It's very easy to get a hang of and is all done with very few buttons. The FLEXMODE radios are capable of narrow band. When editing and at a channel screen (CH 2 or whatever ) you hit * I believe and a small n shows to show it's in narrow mode. I've never used a GPH but belive it's similar. I THINK THEY DID AWAY WITH FACE PROGRAMMING ON THE DPH!!! But I don't know. The E series and I suppose the GPH can be downbanded to cover the 144 range with a total of 144-174. I owned a low split 136-161 radio in the LPI model. I found it to work up to 164 with no mods. I have a UHF LPU series that's basically an EPU E series inside. A tech used the "syncal" program and did some sort of editing to enable the 440 range giving it a range of 440-512. I used to own an Army PRC-127. It's the LPI series with no scan switches or leds. The keypad allowed face programming without even using the key or shorting method (same thing). From inspecting it I found that they just routed the PROG- line through the FCN button. When it was held down it served two purposes. It grounded the programming line just like the side key and of course held the FCN down. The radio programmed just the same from there. I think any of them could easily be modded to do this. I also found that under the keypads of the E series radios are spots for leds. I put 4 chip leds in there and replaced the black keypad with a white one from an old L series. The keys lit just with the display just like an MTS2000. The E series and I supposed GPH display can be set to light on keypress, display activity, or channel change. I set mine to all acitivities. When I hit a button it lights. When it's scanning and stops on a channel it lights then goes out if the transmission is long enogh. It then lights again when the display settles back to the idle channel. The timing can be set from 1 to 6 seconds, off or infinite. The alpha display can be set to the classic mode if that's what you like too. It's done through one of the group settings. In this mode it just shows the X (tx channel) XX (Rx channel) numbers. The radios can be cloned to each other too. You just put the master in the programming mode and hit the # key. A few seconds later it's done. When using the radio you switch groups (zones) by pressing # (group number) then Enter. Each zone can have a complete different personality. I have one set up as a tactical mode with no RX or display leds. They can have different priority settings and scan entries as well. Editing the scan is as easy as rotating to the channel and hitting ENT or CLR. In the EPH series the scan and priority switches have to be down to off for this to work. The display can show group labels as well like a spectra. And to think, most of this stuff was in production back when Motorola was touting the MT1000 era of radios. I never understood why King couldn't keep innovating. They had more user features years before anyone else. |
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Damn there is a lot of info to go through!
Ok so if I understand this correctly, I can use the MURS channels for civilian use with no license. I could use it to talk to my buddies, while hunting, etc as long as I don't go over the 2Watt limit? I should be able to program in the MURS channels as they are within the kings frequency range. |