[RED]
BE WARNED!! It is a violation of Federal law to modify an amatuer radio transciever like the FT-50 and use it on bands outside the amatuer service, no matter what frequency your are authorized to use.

All radio equipment used in the USA has to be type certified for the service it is being used for, and that is no exception.[/RED]

FCC fines usually start at the $5000-12,000 range for violations, if teh department is knowledgable of this activity they can be held liable as well.

You may think you will never get caught, but wait until the radio salesman starts seeing all the money he could be making selling legal radios that he is not because you are using illegal ones.... I have seen it happen before. One county was fined $10,000 for having one illegaly modifyed amatuer rig in its EOC.


Axel, to give you a quick and dirty answer KEEP IT SIMPLE!! Complex systems = more chance for failure. Also don't get caught in the trap of going with a propritary system where you are locking into one companies technology (trunking for example). Let me know some specifics of what you are trying to do (department size, response area size, topography, communication needs and such) and I will try to help.

No, whats illegal is modifying an amatuer rig and using it [red]outside of the amatuer frqeuency allocation[/red]. You can homebrew and modify whatever you want as long as you meet FCC technical requirments, but you cannot use that rig outside of the designated amatuer spectrum.

I have several homebrewed rigs, and 90% of the rigs I own I have modified in one form or another... but for fire department use I use a 100% stock Motorola rig... I put some amateur repeaters in it as well but that is 100% legal.

What he was talking about doing was modifying maatuer radios for use on public safety fequencies, which is clearly illegal. You can program amateur freqeuncies into a commercial rigs all you want and it is legal, but to use a modified amateur rig on frequencies other than the amatuer frequencies is illegal.... the radio was never FCC type accepted for that use. For a radio to be used on commercial or public saftey frequencies it must be FCC type accepted for that service. You can homebrew an amatuer rig, you can't homebrew a fire or police rig.

This is a sore spot with me for several reasons. I posted here a few months ago about the fact that LEO's from several agencies were modifying amatuer rigs for use, then just choosing thier own "private channels" to chat ingnoring FCC frequency allocations, and then even started coming into the 2 meter amatuer band (144-148mhz), all without proper licensing. I finally got that ended without having to notify the FCC, but when people keep doing crap like that the FCC will sooner or later tighten up on the requirments for amatuer radio manufacturers, making them make thier rigs much harder to modify, then driving up the cost of our hobby.

If you want to talk on an amatuer radio, get the license. Its free, the test is $8, and I have seen 8 year olds pass it.

Ahh, I get it now. sorry for hijacking your thread on a tangent.

Froma marketing standpoint Motorola is where the $$$ is... they probably have 70% or so of the market and many agencies will use nothing else. I know many agencies that will use nothing but Motorola, but few that will not use it at all.