I know that the RCMP will confiscate radios that are "illegally modified" themselves, usually ham gear modified to hold commercial stuff. The ONLY authority over US frequency allocation and usage is the Federal Communications Commission. I honestly don't know if the Coast Guard would check your license or not, but they don't actually have authority to fine you for not having one. If you're a foreign operator (Say from Canada) you have to have a reciprocal operating license (not difficult to obtain, if you're licensed already in your country). If I remember rightly the rules state something about the fines being up to $10,000 dollars and jail time. While it might seem "cheaper" to modify a ham rig (and then use it) on marine frequencies - it won't be IF you get caught doing so. there's inexpensive, there's cheap and there's frugal. Those emissions can cause signals in other bands to be over-ridden by your radio signal which could place others in jeopardy.īut for Dan. The problem with modifying a ham radio into another service comes from the fact that amateur gear - when commercially produced may well be within all standards, FOR the Ham Bands, but when you push the envelop, so to speak, you can cause spurious emissions. This comes down specifically to prevent harmful interference especially to life-saving services, but also to prevent most kinds of interference. And as Dave pointed out, they are done this way to PREVENT interference to services outside the bands they are designed to operate in. I'm not sure honestly how other countries do things.įor everyone else, radios built in other countries are indeed, 'type accepted' in the US by FCC standards. Yeah, I didn't go into extreme detail on the type acceptance. There are very good reasons to require radios used in a life-critical service like marine SSB to meet particular standards for frequency stability and signal purity that a fundamentally experimental service like ham radio simply need not meet.Ĭool. With the 802/SCS/Airmail combination all frequency and mode control is by the laptop and the e-mail functionality built into the radio isn't necessary.įinally, the type-acceptance requirement and other legal limitations are not Not NOT bureaucracy run amok. The built-in e-mail stuff isn't particularly useful for most installations - if you want to do e-mail the near-universal setup is an SCS Pactor modem and Airmail on a laptop or other computer. It's a great marine SSB and a good ham radio. That doesn't make it acceptable for use in other services. So a manufacturer might apply for type-acceptance on a radio for use on amateur frequencies. Type acceptance is not universal it is application specific. When I read the initial post in this thread my first thought was "Oh no, not again." Rick said about everything I would and very well. Also for the record I've been involved in using, setting up and training radio systems for nearly forty years now.) I've held a First Class Radio Telephone Operators license in the past - no longer issued these days, and Second Class and a Third Class. (For the record I hold a RR license, and I hold an Amateur Extra license. Ham radio requires you have at minimum a General class license (not a HARD test, but not EASY either). If you are going to use Marine, you need a restricted operators license (no test, just a fee) and a ships radio station license (fee, no test). If you are a ham, you need to have an Amateur Radio Operators license. Lastly - you need to decide what you need to use the radio for. Personally, I'd do a bit more research on the radio gear. If I'm not mistaken, you can find a few radios from several large manufacturers that will cover, legally, both the amateur bands and the marine frequencies you require. What this means is they meet certain specifications to prevent interference to other radio services. (Again, some ham radios are type accepted). There's a little thing called "FCC Type acceptance".Īmateur radio gear is NOT(necessarily) FCC type accepted. I have a radio that CAN operate in both marine bands (actually it can pretty much transmit in any band) but it is ONLY operated in Amateur bands as that is what it was designed to do. That does not mean you can't purchase radios that can operate in all bands though. It it not legal for amateurs or anyone else to modify radios to operate in "out of band" operation. I'll state that a "modified ham radio rig" is legal to use in ham bands only. Click to expand.Since this IS my field and I AM an expert on this.
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