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On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 03:41:15 GMT, Dwight Stewart
wrote: "Never anonymous Bud" wrote: 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. That not quite correct. The rules do allow an Amateur the use of "any means of radio communications at its disposal," which would clearly include the use of equipment capable of operating on frequencies outside the amateur bands (see last paragraph below). PART 97--AMATEUR RADIO SERVICE Subpart E--Providing Emergency Communications Sec. 97.403--Safety of life and protection of property. No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radio communications at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available. Sec. 97.405 Station in distress. (a) No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station in distress of any means at its disposal to attract attention, make known its condition and location, and obtain assistance. (b) No provision of these rules prevents the use by a station, in the exceptional circumstances described in paragraph (a) of this section, of any means of radio communications at its disposal to assist a station in distress. Other rules (97.401 and 97.407) cover emergency operations during a disaster. Subpart E, Section 2.405, contains additional guidance concerning emergency operations. The operator you describe was more likely cited for having equipment improperly modified to transmit outside the Amateur Bands, not for actually using those out-of-band frequencies in the situation described. I realize this sounds like a Catch-22 situation, but those are the rules. In this case, if the operator had used another radio, a radio approved for those frequencies, there would have been no rule violation. Interesting technical & legal point, but the law can be like that. So, for the fun of it, lets introduce more license categories: Assume, for a start, a military radio operator, various amateur license categories, CB licensees, emergency service personnel such as ambulance, police, fire, etc. Just who is or isn't allowed to use available transceivers under various circumstances? No, not trying to be "difficult" here. For practical purposes, it might not make any real difference in a real emergency, but it might be interesting to know how the regulations actually read in various countries and guidelines by the ITU. At the extreme of "any means" does this mean that anyone can rig an untuned spark gap transmitter to "call for help" whether he holds any sort of license or not? Yeah, I know, I specialize in difficult questions, and often being correct. One of the reasons why some people on misc.survivalism hate me. :-) erniegalts Dwight Stewart (W5NET) http://www.qsl.net/w5net/ |
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