Is there a legit way to use these without a Ham license? I sometimes ski in areas with bad cell service and it would be neat to have an alternative. I've seen portable CB radios but they're on the pricier side
Short answer: no
Nuanced short answer: operate on frs channels or buy a gmrs license and operate on those bands. This is still illegal because your equipment isn't allowed to operate on these bands but not heavily enforced. Use at your own risk.
There are 5W and even 50W GMRS bands. You would need a license in that case, but it's not expensive. The handheld would be non-compliant, but that wouldn't be detectable on-air unless the deviation or power is outside spec for that frequency.
If you have an emergency you can initiate emergency traffic.
Bought an UV-R5 years ago during a short prepping spree as backup if the mobile net is compromised. Took off the antenna and transmitted less than a second to see if an RTL-SDR would pick up the carrier wave. Then it went into storage and I top up the battery once per year.
But to clarify, for the purposes of amateur radio, "emergency traffic" is defined as:
> essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available
(47 CFR § 97.403)
That is, just because your communications are related to an ongoing emergency doesn't automatically give you the right to transmit without a license.
You can use any means necessary if life or property are in imminent danger and only if you're already licensed. The section of Part 97 everyone quotes applies to amateur stations only (like the rest of Part 97).
So unless there's another part of the FCC rules that allows this I'm unaware of, even emergency communications made by unlicensed users are illegal.
The better question might be: What is your imagined use case for this radio? A VHF/UHF handheld is more or less limited to LOS transmission, so you would either need to be within reliable range of a repeater or another person with an HT tuned to that frequency. If you’re looking for something you can use in a backcountry emergency, you’d frankly be better off just plunking down the money for a satphone, which is going to be much more reliable. An HT radio is unlikely to be of much use in that scenario, unless you know there’s a repeater nearby that is regularly used and that you can hit from your location. OTOH, if you’re looking for a new hobby and a gadget to play around with, get a license, pick up an UV-K5, and have fun!
If you want to get a license just to play on the radio, it is super easy. A Technician license will allow you legally to use any VHF/UHF radio with full access to those bands (plus all of 6m and some access to other HF bands).
It’s extremely simple to get licensed. Put the HamStudy app on your phone, run through the question pool/practice exams until the info is in your memory, and then sign up for a remote exam on HamStudy.org. I studied for my Technician license for like a day and a half and aced the Tech exam. I aced my General and Extra exams within a week using the same method. I have no background in tech or EE. So, yeah, it’s easy.
I agree in general, that if someone has a short amount of time, a small amount of money, and any kind of ability to memorize some rules, then getting a Tech license is a breeze! And if you're actually enjoying it, getting a General is not difficult, either.
In my humble opinion, the rules on antenna and transmit power for FRS are annoying - garbage range and prone to interference. I wouldn't want to risk pissing off the FCC or a ham with too much time on their hands by running hot on FRS constantly...
But for occasional backwoods travel with friends or to use in an emergency without clogging up ham frequencies, it's totally possible to reprogram certain Baofengs and these radios to transmit on FRS frequencies with low wattage. In fact, I think FRS was modified to allow higher power now, so the low-end of these radios fits. It's just the antenna reg that they break now.
Yeah, definitely agree 100%. It’s not a popular ham opinion, but the general follow-up to “Is this illegal?” should be “Will anyone care?” Lots of practices in the radio world are, strictly speaking, illegal, but no one cares. See all the guys running multiple kW amps on CB, which is limited (laughably) to 4W AM and 12W PEP on SSB.
If you modify a bunch of Fengs to run on FRS/GMRS freqs to talk up and down the mountain out in the middle of nowhere, sure, it’s illegal, but if no one hears your transmissions other that the people on the mountain, it’s not an issue unless you take the FCC regs as moral edicts. But if you’re looking for a way to get a signal out in an emergency, a satphone is still going to be your best bet.
Less for emergency use (in a life or death situation I'm less worried about upsetting the FCC), more for "hey dude, wanna meet up for lunch" or "FYI I'm heading back to the car".
Ideally something that doesn't require everyone to have a license (eg I can just hand a friend a without advance prep) but with a couple miles of range without LOS (maybe I'm underestimating the Toys R Us walkie talkies but I'm assuming they don't reach that far).
I've also seen LoRa based solutions like Meshtastic but not sure how practical it is
Yeah in that case, you’d probably be better off just picking up some decent GMRS handhelds. Spend a little more on some antenna upgrades, and you should have no issues. If you really want to stay on the right side of the law, you can have everyone in your group (who isn’t related to you) throw $35 at the FCC for some GMRS licenses. But, depending on terrain, you should be able to stay in reasonable contact with everyone with 5W if you’re within a mile or two.
I'm pretty sure you can find the same radio hardware platform but FCC certified for GMRS (or so the label says anyway). Maybe they added filtering to get it to pass? That means a $35 GMRS radio with USB-C charging, swappable antennas, and higher transmit power.
He's already seen Meshtastic, which is something I definitely want to play with for his exact use-case: coordinating with friends while skiing.
Any decently made GMRS radio should be fine for coordinating around the ski resort. I've had mixed results with FRS as the range is quite poor. This is amplified by the fact that the other party could be on a different face of the mountain as well as covered by trees. It's also convenient that many GMRS and FRS frequencies overlap, so if someone in your party only has an FRS radio or doesn't have a license, they can still communicate with GMRS users, assuming they're within range.
As another commenter pointed out a satellite communicator would be preferable in an emergency situation, as FRS/GMRS cannot be relied on to request emergency or rescue services. I keep a Garmin inReach Mini for this purpose.
What's the reasoning for not getting the license? It's super straightforward, the test questions are about some RF basics and the regulations you'd have to comply with anyway, and it's super cheap and lasts a lifetime.
You need to renew the license every 10 years, but as long as you renew you don't need to take a test (which is maybe what you mean by "lasts a lifetime").
Yeah depends on the country/jurisdiction - in Canada, an amateur radio certification is valid for life, and doesn't require any sort of re-testing or paid renewal or anything. Pretty nice. One of the few times the government has really done something right, IMO :)
In the US, it lasts a lifetime but you have to tell them you're still alive every ten years. This is free, but if you don't file the form, your license is no longer valid.
If you're in the US, you can use any address you can receive mail at (work, a PO box, mail forwarding service, etc). I used a cheap mail forwarding service (it actually doesn't charge a monthly fee, just shipping and I never get mail there anyway). The important thing is to get this setup before you even get your FRN because the change history of your license is also public, so once your address is there, it's viewable forever.
I believe both the FCC and ISED have exceptions for unlicensed individuals to use any amateur frequency in the event of a genuine emergency. For the price it could be worthwhile to program one of these with local comms frequencies. As long as you don't transmit outside of an emergency it's perfectly legal to both have and listen with. Plus it has a flashlight!
I could be wrong, but I believe that anyone, even without a license, can use them to listen to ham bands at anytime. You can not use them to transmit, unless there is some sort of emergency.
For that, I'd just get FRS (US) or PMR446 (EU) radios (or your local equivalent). No license needed and very cheaply available but still interoperable across manufacturers.
I don’t think it would. IIRC, CB radios are type-certified, which means that the transmitter itself is licensed, rather than the operator (similar to FRS).
That said, these days the FCC gives absolutely zero shits about what happens on 11m, so I wouldn’t expect any knocks at the door if you modify a non-CB radio for use on CB channels.
Wrong frequency range - these handhelds are designed for 2m and 70cm, and CB is 11m. You'd have to do a lot of tricky hardware modification first, and then hook it up to a rather large antenna for a handheld.
You can, but the problem is that the radio chip is not designed for the 27Mhz, then you will generate an huge amount of spurious that will pollute other bands and wasting lot of power.
I advise don't do that, just to avoid to interfere with some critical services.
It's probably pretty easy for anyone here to get Technician, and probably General. I'd expect a large number could get Extra, and probably in one sitting.
So you're right, you could use ham radio, but it does require a license, but it's probably not hard to get.
Also, if you've an emergency, technically whatever you need to do to get help is fine. But it had better be a life and death emergency. Especially if you end up taking over the radio to a government agency, e.g. FAA or DoD.
> It's probably pretty easy for anyone here to get Technician, and probably General.
Yep. If you're reading this, you probably have the technical background to pass the Technician exam pretty easily.
A big chunk of the exam is stuff you learned in the physics class you probably had to take along the way. The rest is largely about specific regulations, like the power limit at this frequency is X, and don't build a tower more than Y tall within Z of airport.
If you can remember "frequency * wavelength = speed of light" and "watts = volts * amps", you could probably get a passing score on the technical part of it without studying in advance.
Most of the rest of the Technician exam is what is the absolute minimum you need to know about Part 97 to avoid disrupting your neighbors' radio reception and/or keep the FCC from knocking on your door.
Exactly. They're the training wheels: if you never do these things, you'll be fine. (And if you do the right things and your neighbor still gets annoyed, we won't get mad at you.)
General and Extra are more like "OK, here's how you can get as close as possible to those things we told you not do to without getting in trouble."
