On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 07:16:59 GMT, Never anonymous Bud
wrote:

Separating himself from Baghdad Bob, erniegalts
whined:

There are actually three classes of distress messages and AFIK all
have priority over any normal traffic. However, I have my doubts that
all amateurs would necessarily recognize them, let alone users of CB
or most other two way services.

It STILL boils down to the FCC NOT accepting an emergency as a reason
for transmitting on a frequency you are NOT licensed for.

Here in San Diego, a few years ago, a licensed Ham operator
with a modded (out-of-band xmit) radio was off-roading with
friends. One of them had a serious crash. Ham guy claimed
he couldn't hit a Ham repeater, so called in on a Sheriff's
Dept. freq (453.400).

The injured person was rescued, but the FCC filed charges
against the Ham guy for unlicensed operation.

The case was settled when Ham guy 'donated' his radio to the County.

FCC ruling was he was not licensed for the frequency he used,
and that they make NO exemption for an emergency.

If memory serves me right, the charges were eventually reduced or
dropped, but he never did get his equipment back. Whatever the
outcome, the FCC made it very clear that transmitting out of band was
a bad thing to do and they would make your life miserable for awhile.