Ham equipment is not type approved (or whatever it's called nowadays)
so it is not legal for use in anything but ham use. Move it out of
band, and it's illegal.


I have always heard that it's legal *in the U.S.) to operate a radio out of
it's band as long as the radio isn't breaking any of the rules.

In other words, that it would be legal to operate a ham radio on MURS
ffrequencies except that there's a few little things in the way making it
illegal, such as

liscence-free MURS frequencies are limited to 2 watts of power. Ham
transmitters usually use much more power than that. It is illegal to operate a
50 watt or 100 watt ham transmitter on MURS frequencies.

A cb modified to transmit in the 10 meter ham band is legal as long as you're a
liscened ham and as long as the cb meets all emission requirements for the 10
meter ham band after you modify it. that is, as long as it meets all legal
standards.

At least, that's the way I've always learned (heard) it from various places.

Mediaguy500 wrote:
Ham equipment is not type approved (or whatever it's called nowadays)
so it is not legal for use in anything but ham use. Move it out of
band, and it's illegal.

A cb modified to transmit in the 10 meter ham band is legal as long as you're a
liscened ham and as long as the cb meets all emission requirements for the 10
meter ham band after you modify it. that is, as long as it meets all legal
standards.

A ham can modify anything or build anything for use in the ham bands, so
long as it meets all technical regs.

It is illegal to modify ham equipment to use in another service -- or,
more accuately, it is illegal to use it in another service (likley
merely modifying it is not illegal).

Phil

Mediaguy500 ) writes:
Ham equipment is not type approved (or whatever it's called nowadays)
so it is not legal for use in anything but ham use. Move it out of
band, and it's illegal.


I have always heard that it's legal *in the U.S.) to operate a radio out of
it's band as long as the radio isn't breaking any of the rules.

You've heard wrong.

This has nothing to do with amateur radio.

If you want to use a radio service, you need to use equipment that fits
the requirements for that band. With one (or maybe a few) exception,
that means the equipment must be type approved. So you want to use CB,
you need equipment that is type approved. MURS, GMRS, marine band, "Public
Service band" and the list goes on, and you need equipment that is type
approved.

Amateur radio is the unique exception. Because it has always been seen
to some extent as a technical hobby/service, if type approved equipment was
required that would kill any technical experimentation.

Take ham equipment and move it somewhere else, and it's illegal because
it's not type approved. The fact that it's has higher power than the
band might allow is only secondary, because it never received type approval
in the first place.

Of course you can move any other equipment to a ham band, because there
there's no need for type approval.

Note that type approval is related to the actual radio service. One does
not have a CB set type approved for every radio service, it's type approved
for CB. So even if amateur radio equipment needed to be type approved,
moving it elsewhere would not mean it was legal elsewhere, because it
hadn't been type approved for that new service.

This is precisely why I brought it up. People don't know the rules, and
either truly believe the rules are the way they want them to be, or they
just decide the rules don't apply to them.

Michael