First off the Communications Act of 1934 empowers the FCC to regulate
and determine standards for all transmitters used by the general
public. So whether they grandfather one specific model or not is not a
violation of any Law or the Constitution. During WW2 the US Congress
suspended "ALL" none essential Communications traffic in the US. That
included amature radio. Only Public safety, and broadcast radio were
not affected. It took an act in 1947, if my memory serves me
correctly, to reinstate the amature radio service.

It's legal for them to do that during wartime, but not during
peacetime.

In 1976 the FCC changed the rules for Type Acceptance of CB radios.
Any radio that met type acceptance prior to that date was allowed to
be used but their sale was made illegal. As for your question, if it
was a type accepted kit prior to 1976 and unassembled and you obtained
in a sale on or before January of 1976 then it would be legal to build
and use. If you obtained the kit not through a sale it also would be
legal to build.


In reality, today if you were find one and build it and it met these
criteria:

1) caused no TVI to your neighbors
2) transmitted less the 5 watts output

then for most part the FCC probably wont bother you.

Although I doubt if there's any of those kits left, I do know that
there are some people who can only afford to shop in secondhand shops.

And might run across one today, although it's probably much more
likely they would find an actual full power 23 chanel cb.

Those old radios are good for nostalgia purposes. Their receivers lack
today in comparision to even the cheapest of CB sets. I had an old
Radio Shack Knight Kit CB radio back in the early 70's. The main
complaint I had of it was selectivity.

james

yes. Those kits did lack sensitivity. And aren't as good as real cb
radios today.

And they probably weren't as good as real cb radios back then, either.

The old broadcast AM radios have better sensitivity than today's
radios on the AM band.

Even the old AM/FM radios have better sensitivity on the AM band than
today's AM/FM radios.

Today's radios seem to have better sensitivity on the FM band than the
older AM/FM radios do.

At least, that's been my experience.

Back to CB, the last time I looked, which was recently (2007), one of
the Radio Shacks near here is selling a channel CB walkie-talkie.
Which uses crystals the
user is supposed to put in himself for the channels he wants to
operate on.

However, these crystals are easily switched around by any user to
transmit out of band. Just by switching the transmit and recieve
crystals around.

It is a FCC-approved radio.

However, the FCC rules also say it's not a FCC-approved radio.

Even though there is an FCC approved notice either on a sticker on the
radio or engraved into the radio itself, if I recall correctly.

I believe it's engraved.

Screwed up government at work once again.







At least, that's been my experience.

In 1976 the FCC changed the rules for Type Acceptance of CB radios.
Any radio that met type acceptance prior to that date was allowed to
be used but their sale was made illegal.

yes, I remember the sale of 23 channels being made illegal.

However, I'm still not sure that it was even legal for the FCC to do
so.

Although they did so, anyways.

From what I learned in school, which was before that happened, it's
illegal for the FCC to do so.

Or the mandatory transition to digital tv (although it was a past
Congress who decided to do that instead of the FCC)

Or them busting the CB shops for selling 10 meter radios today they
bbought before the new FCC rules prohibiting selling them went into
effect.

You can still legally get scanners wih cell phone coverage, if you can
find one, as long as they were manufactured before a certain date.

So the salee of those are still legal. So why not the sale of 23
channel CBs?

I thought all analog tv had to be shut off next year, but last night,
I seen the tv station run a crawl explaining thatonly full power tv
stations have to switch, and
explained that low power tv stations and tv translators are both
allowed to continue broadcasting in analog after that date.

We don't have any LPTV we can pick up over the air here, so over the
air tv will effectively be gone from here, since indoor antennas,
stationary roof antennas,
roof antennas with rotors all didn't work to get clear digital tv
reception. Digital tv reception didn't even work through the cable tv
company even though they
have the best reception equipment and location allowed around here. It
still frequently breaks up into blocks with audio cutting out when it
does so.

Unwatchable.

And neighbors with a lot better lot more expensive equipment than we
can afford who also had digital tv capability couldn't get any
watchable digital tv reception,
even though there's several digital tv stations around here.

The analog versions of those same stations are completely fine around
here.

And other people than just me also noticed the analog cable tv
breaking up into blocks since the cable company picks up the cable tv
stations' digitally and
retransmits them as analog.

Once all the full power broadcast stations switch over to digital,
they'll be unwatchable even on analog cable tv from the digital signal
breaking up at the cable tv
companiy's reception point and retransmitting it over analog cable tv.

From what I learned in school, obviously before it ever happened, the
FCC's busting of the CB shops for selling today 10 meter radios they
bought before the
FCC changed the rules is completely illegal.

If it's legal, then ham radios have to be certified by the FCC to
legally be used on the ham bands.

And hams say ham radios don't have to be certified to be used on the
ham bands.

But if those hams are correct, then the 10 meter radios are perfectly
legal.

however, the FCC says they aren't legal

And if they are not legal,

then ham radios do have to be certified by the FCC before they're
allowed to be used on the ham bands.

Which makes almost every ham radio that exists today completely
illegal to use on the ham bands.

Beccause according to what the FCC has been doing recently, it doesn't
matter how old those radios are.

According to the FCC rules, old ham radios are illegal since they're
channelized radios which can easily be used on the cb band.

On Apr 18, 2:05*pm, wrote:
In 1976 the FCC changed the rules for Type Acceptance of CB radios.
Any radio that met type acceptance prior to that date was allowed to
be used but their sale was made illegal.

yes, I remember the sale of 23 channels being made illegal.

However, I'm still not sure that it was even legal for the FCC to do
so.

Although they did so, anyways.

From what I learned in school, which was before that happened, it's
illegal for the FCC to do so.

Or the mandatory transition to digital tv (although it was a past
Congress who decided to do that instead of the FCC)

Or them busting the CB shops for selling 10 meter radios today they
bbought before the new FCC rules prohibiting selling them went into
effect.

You can still legally get scanners wih cell phone coverage, if you can
find one, as long as they were manufactured before a certain date.

So the salee of those are still legal. So why not the sale of 23
channel CBs?

I thought all analog tv had to be shut off next year, but last night,
I seen the tv station run a crawl explaining thatonly full power tv
stations have to switch, and
*explained that low power tv stations and tv translators are both
allowed to continue broadcasting in analog after that date.

We don't have any LPTV we can pick up over the air here, so over the
air tv will effectively be gone from here, since indoor antennas,
stationary roof antennas,
*roof antennas with rotors all didn't work to get clear digital tv
reception. *Digital tv reception didn't even work through the cable tv
company even though they
have the best reception equipment and location allowed around here. It
still frequently breaks up into blocks with audio cutting out when it
does so.

Unwatchable.

And neighbors with a lot better lot more expensive equipment than we
can afford who also had digital tv capability couldn't get any
watchable digital tv reception,
*even though there's several digital tv stations around here.

The analog versions of those same stations are completely fine around
here.

And other people than just me also noticed the analog cable tv
breaking up into blocks since the cable company picks up the cable tv
stations' digitally and
retransmits them as analog.

Once all the full power broadcast stations switch over to digital,
they'll be unwatchable even on analog cable tv from the digital signal
breaking up at the cable tv
companiy's reception point and retransmitting it over analog cable tv.

From what I learned in school, obviously before it ever happened, the
FCC's busting of the CB shops for selling today 10 meter radios they
bought before the
FCC changed the rules *is completely illegal.

If it's legal, then ham radios have to be certified by the FCC to
legally be used on the ham bands.

And hams say ham radios don't have to be certified to be used on the
ham bands.

But if those hams are correct, then the 10 meter radios are perfectly
legal.

however, the FCC says they aren't legal

And if they are not legal,

then ham radios do have to be certified by the FCC before they're
allowed to be used on the ham bands.

Which makes almost every ham radio that exists today completely
illegal to use on the ham bands.

Beccause according to what the FCC has been doing recently, it doesn't
matter how old those radios are.

According to the FCC rules, old ham radios are illegal since they're
channelized radios which can easily be used on the cb band.

From the way I learned it, which was ven before the FCC prohibited the
sale of 23 channel CB radios.

The FCC is allowed to prohibit the sale of 23 channel cb radios and 10
meter radios

But they're not allowed to prevent the sale of 23 channel cb radiosd
and 10 meter radios if those radios were bought before the new FCC
laws went into effect.

If the FCC says "no 10 meter radios allowed for sale after january 1,
2005"

they are not legally allowed to bust a shop for selling any 10 meter
radio after that date if the shop had bought all of their 10 meter
radios before that date.

Only if the shop continued to buy those radios after January 1, 2005

The above dates are only examples. I don't know what real date was
set, if any. I don't think any was in the case of 10 meter radios,
just in the case of 23 channel
cb radios).

But as I recall, the 23 channel CBs were gone from the shops by the
date the FCC said.

What a waste throwing all of those good CB radios out.

Off course, any company or store who tries to defend their legal
rights in such cases ends up paying a lot of money in legal fees which
they shouldn't have to
in that case since they weren't breaking any laws anyway.

The FCC claiming that it's breaking the law just goes to show that
either 1. The FCC doesn't know the law. o 2. The FCC is purposely
ignoring the law.

Since it's clearly a violation of the ex-post-facto provisions of the
U.S. Constitution.

No one can legally be found guilty today or tomorrow for a crime they
comitted yesterday or before that was not a crime yesterdasy or
before, at the time it was
comitted.

As I understand it from what I read, the FCC has been busting and
fining some places and people for mere "posession" of those radios
even if the people bought them before their new rules defining them as
"illegal" were made and went into effect.

I don't own one anyways.




their new rules defining them as illegal went into effect.

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:05:01 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

|yes, I remember the sale of 23 channels being made illegal.
|
|However, I'm still not sure that it was even legal for the FCC to do
|so.
|-------------------

Yes it was perfectly legal. The standards for type acceptance changed.
Therefore, the older units no longer met type acceptance.

james