October 14, 2025 • 17 mins
Discover the exciting FCC petition to reallocate VHF lowband frequencies (30-50 MHz) for GMRS and FRS users, proposed by Michael Treyos (KAB746). This video dives into the Natcom Magazine article, exploring how these underused channels could enhance long-range communication for emergencies and everyday use. Learn about the benefits of lowband VHF over UHF, the targeted frequencies (46-49 MHz, 35-43 MHz), and why this could be a game-changer for GMRS. Subscribe for more radio insights and check the links below! #GMRS #FRS #VHF #FCC #hamradio
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Article - https://natcommag.substack.com/p/gmrs-and-frs-fcc-petitioned-for-vhf-low-band-channels?r=22awqa
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Today's video is sponsored by Ham Radio Prep - save 20% off of all of their courses with the code JASON20 at checkout - https://hamradioprep.com
Article - https://natcommag.substack.com/p/gmrs-and-frs-fcc-petitioned-for-vhf-low-band-channels?r=22awqa
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A GMRS licensee and user has petitioned the FCC to
give a low band VHF frequency a new set of
frequencies to GMRS and FRS users. This is kind of
a neat story and I think I'm in favor of it.
Let's take a look. This article comes from nottcom Magazine,
(00:22):
not com mag National Communications magazine. This is a subscription
that I have and I read interesting stories from it.
I think the subscription is like five bucks a month.
So if you like stories like this, I recommend subscribing
to nottcom mag Like I do. I don't read all
of the stories on purpose because I don't want to
give away all of their behind the paywall info GMRS
(00:45):
and FRS. FCC has been petitioned for low VHF low
band channels. Now what is low band? If you don't
know what lowband is, I've done some low band before.
It's it's kind of fun. So VHF goes from thirty
mega hurts to three hundred megahertz. UHF goes from three
hundred megahertz to three thousand megahertz. I don't know who
(01:07):
came up with these plans way back in the day,
but that's just kind of what it is. So VHF
very high frequency is from thirty megahertz to three hundred megherds,
so anything above thirty is considered and lower than three
hundred is considered VHF obviously, So generally speaking, when you
hear the term low band, you're talking about somewhere between
like thirty and fifty or thirty and sixty megahertz, somewhere
(01:30):
below the six meter band. The six meter band in
ham radio is between fifty and fifty four megahertz, and
it's considered the magic band. A lot of the times
that band will open up and you'll be able to
talk across the world with five watts of power, and
it's really fun, but it's not open all the time.
There are police and fire departments in the past that
have used low band somewhere around the forty six to
(01:50):
forty eight megahertz frequency range, And you can buy radios
on eBay or the used marketplace right now, and you
can find low band radios that'll do fifty to one
hundred watts something like that. Ken Wood makes one, but
a lot of those frequencies have been kind of forgotten
about for lack of a better term because a lot
of companies have moved to higher band VHF or into
(02:14):
the UHF or into the microwave frequencies. Now GMRS right
now today, GMRS and FS, which share channels around the
four hundred and sixty two megahurtz range four innit and
sixty two is obviously higher than three hundred. They're in
the UHF megahertz range. UHF band, and the UHF band
is great for closer communications or for communicating in a
building and talking through walls, through concrete or steel walls
(02:38):
or something like that. But VHF low band or VHF
in general is, and i'm talking in generalizations here, is
generally going to be better for longer range communications. It's
also going to require a longer antenna on your vehicle
or your home if you're going to set up a
low band radio to talk across a wider area. So
(02:58):
the summary of this article here is a longtime GMRS
license has submitted to the FCC a proposal to reallocate
underused VHF low band radio frequencies for gmrs and fs.
The petition argues that these channels offer superior propagation characteristics
compared to the current UHF frequencies used by FURS and GMRS. Again,
(03:20):
current FSGMRS frequencies around the four sixty two to four
hundred and sixty seven megahertz range, so the petition submitted
to the FCC proposes sweeping changes to the reallocate under
used VHF low band radio frequencies for GMRS. Shows a
copy of the document there. The National Capital Communications LLC,
(03:40):
also known as the mid Atlantic REACT in Washington, DC area,
has formally requested that the FCC reallocate a series of
outdated or abandon frequencies in the thirty to fifty megahertz
band to enhance GMRS and FS capabilities. Follow along as
we detail frequencies proposed in the petition and some background
while these channels might prove workable for expanded GMRS capabilities.
(04:04):
The petition was submitted by Michael Trehos KAB seven oh
four six that's a GMRS goal sign KAB seven oh
four six, a longtime GMRS licensee who is also a physician.
He's also a general class HAMD with the call of
KB four PGC and as other VFCCC licenses too. Filed
in response to a recent rulemaking efforts and aligned with
(04:27):
President Trump's executive orders and promoting deregulation and efficient government operations.
The petition highlights the growing need for longer range, publicly
accessible communication tools in the face of increasingly severe natural disasters. So,
like I said, longer range. So FRS and GMRS and
GFRS radios are limited to I think two watts. I
(04:49):
think it is GMRS radios are limited to fifty watts.
And GMRS can use outside external antennas. You can take
the antenna off of the radio, unscrewed it from the
top the radio on a GMRS antenna and connect an
external antenna on your vehicle, or set an antenna up
high up on your house, or run a coax to it.
A true FRS radio does not have a removable antenna.
(05:11):
That's one of the things that GMRS gives you. GMRS
also gives you up to fifty WTTs of power, so
you can have a mobile radio with fifty wats of
power or a base station radio with fifty wats of power.
And you can use a repeater in GMRS. And what
a repeater is if you don't know, I've got several
videos in this channel talking about repeaters and what they are,
and describes them. But it's basically a radio on top
of a building or a top of a tower, typically
(05:32):
one hundred and fifty one hundred and fifty plus feet,
could be four hundred feet, could be one thousand feet,
could be two thousand feet. A repeater up on a
high tower or building that captures the signal from your
little handheld in your backyard or in your home or
your vehicle and retransmits it in a wider area. Because
(05:53):
on VHF and UHF height is might, so the higher
up you get an antenna, and the higher up you
are in elevation if you're going to hike up a
mountain or something, the better you can get a signal
a VHF UF signal. So when you have a UHF
repeater in a high location, it can capture signals from
a low location and retransmit them across a very much
(06:15):
wider area than what your small handheld radio has or
your fifty white mobile radio has. So these frequencies are
excellent to use on repeaters and to use in close
range communications, which often a lot of people use them
in camping situations, overlanding car pools, caravans driving down the highway,
and that's great. But VHF low band is capable of
(06:39):
reaching much further distances. You can talk across a metroplex
or maybe across a state, depending on band conditions and
atmospheric conditions, you can reach out and touch a little
bit farther than you are used to with the current
GMRS frequencies. Now, I think the question is now, I
want to say, first up, I'm all in favor for this.
(07:02):
I'm one hundred percent in favor for this. We haven't
read the whole article yet. I'm gonna skim through the
article and I will put a link in the description
blow you guys can go check out the whole article yourself.
But think of it like this. It's going to determine.
It's going to depend on how many how much power
they're going to allow you to use. So fifty watts
of power is usable by GMRS users, while only two
(07:24):
wats of power is usable by FS and the difference
is basically, you just sign up. You pay thirty five
dollars for a ten year license to give GMRIS call
sign to use on GMRS frequencies, and then you open
up this whole world of multiple power and different types
of radios that you can't use with FOS, and low
band will work great for longer distances like this article
(07:46):
is telling us, and that is great. Thirty to fifty megahertz,
that's great. We're going to see what the actual We're
going to see what the actual frequencies are here in
a second. But think about CB radio, which is around
the twenty seven twenty six to twenty seven megahertz band,
and the limitations of CEBE radio because it is a
free band like fs's freeban. Frs's two watts on freeband.
(08:07):
CEBE radio is four watts on freeband. You can do
twelve wats on sideband, four wats on AM. So it's
a low power band because it is freeband. So if
you add GMRS to a low band VHF system and
allow it a higher power, then you're going to really
be able to reach out a lot further. This goes
on to say that a call sparked by crisis. The
FCC filing points to Hurricane Helene, which devastated parts of
(08:31):
Florida and the Carolinas in twenty twenty four, as a
stark example of modern communication infrastructure's vulnerability. When cell towers
went offline and amateur radio repeaters were knocked out, thousands
of citizens were left without any way to call for help. Now,
I spoke about this and I interviewed some of the
people will post Hurricane Heleen on this channel, and we
were talking about repeaters in the area, some that were
(08:52):
knocked offline and some that were not. But there was
a very good repeater network system that was usable in
that area by Ham's and they were taken traffic from
non hands also in post emergency situations. So it would
be nice to have an alternative to Ham radio and
low band frequencies, something that would reach out a little
bit further in post crisis situations. I agree with this article,
(09:16):
but also remember that if you had a Ham radio license,
you would already have access to this type of technology. Now,
if you're interested in getting your Ham radio license, I
recommend Ham Radio Prep go check out hamradioprep dot com.
They sell packages of license courses, the Technician, General, and
Extra all three courses. They sell MCom courses. Talk a
(09:37):
lot about MCom in this article. Here. They sell packages
of Balfang Basics courses and HF courses and the technician
courses altogether, you can save a twenty percent discount on
all of their courses with the coupon code of Jason twenty. So,
if you're interested in getting more involved into radio and
having even more if they pass this, if the FCC
approves this, and they pass lowband for GMRS, then you'll
(10:00):
have a UHF band and a low ban VCHIF band,
So you have two bands you can talk on GMRS.
And that's great, and like I said, I'm in favor
of that. But Ham Radio already has like thirty bands.
We have like thirty bands we can talk on with
a technician license fifty megahertz and up. So you've already
got this low band thing covered in a different frequency range,
but it's still a low band and all the way
(10:21):
up through your VHF, UHF and microwave frequencies. Lots of
great stuff in him radio. Check out the link in
the description below what frequencies are targeted, because that's kind
of what I was asking when I first read this article.
The proposal calls for the reallocation of three main sets
of frequencies old cordless telephone channels forty six and forty
nine megaherts Okay, once popular in the nineteen eighties, analog
(10:41):
cordless phones operating in the forty three to forty nine
are hertz range have all but disappeared. Nobody has a
land these are landline phones. Cordless landline phones is what
they're talking about. According to the NCC's analysis, ten channel
pairs channels sixteen through twenty five have no active FCC
license and could be repurposed for GMRS repeater operations supporting
both simplex and duplex communications up to one hundred watts
(11:04):
low power baby monitor and Waki Talkie channels forty nine
Dot eighty three to forty nine Dot eight nine megahertz.
This is right below the six meter band framature radio
once used for remote control cars, Waki talkies, and household
baby monitors. I had a Waki Talkie on forty nine
megaherts when I was a kid. There was nobody else
on it. I always was trying to make some kind
(11:25):
of contact on that, but I never got anyone contacted
on that. These low power channels are now largely obsolete.
NCC proposes allocating these five channels for unlicensed to watt
frsus Okay good idea enabling personal and emergency communications without
the need for specialized licenses. Okay, abandoned VHF paging frequencies
thirty five and forty three megahertz. These channels previously were
(11:48):
used by commercial paging services and are no longer in use.
NCC recommends reallocating seven of these frequencies to gmrs, with
the potential for a three hundred watt repeater operations in
an eight megahertz separation for enhanced range. I don't know
about three hundred watts. That might be kind of overkill
for a low band something like that. Depends on what
(12:09):
you're trying to do. You know. They kind of squashed
the whole repeater linking thing in the world of GMRS,
and I don't really understand why that is. There's some
videos out there and I've watched a little bit of it,
and i know what the claim is, and I've got
some additional ideas on top of that, but it doesn't
sound like they really want gmrs to be that far reaching.
(12:29):
But things change over time and that's all well and good,
and the reallocation of these unused frequencies I think is
a very good thing. The petition argues that these VHF
low band channels offer propagation characteristics that far outsee the
range of today's uhf fs and GMRS radios. That is true.
That is a true statement right there. Okay, that is
(12:51):
a true statement. However, CB radio also offers that because
it's just like I said, twenty six to twenty seven megahertz,
and it's right below the frequency range we're talking about here.
The bootstrap, the bottleneck that is that prevents CBE radio
from being legally allowed to do farther range is that
(13:13):
they limit the radios to four wats on AM and
twelve watts on sideband. So if they get these proposed
power limits up to one hundred wats for that first
set and up to three hundred wats for that lower set.
If they get those proposed power limits passed, I think
that will be a larger step in making these more
(13:34):
useful because we could put these frequencies in use today,
and on only five or ten watts of power, you're
not gonna get much further than your stock CB radio is.
But if you were to add one hundred wats or
three hundred watch to a CBE radio, you'd be able
to accomplish the almost the exact same goal, especially now
that CB radio allows FM use as well as AM
(13:54):
and sideband use. Unlike higher frequencies which often require more
line of sight to repeaters, signal in the thirty to
fifty megaharts range can travel over hills, through buildings, and
even bounce off the atmosphere, which is ideal for emergencies
when infrastructure is down. Absolutely correct statement. This is the
type of thing that you learn in your Hamm radio
test when you go take your first technician test. Precedent
(14:15):
and policy alignment, The petition cites earlier FCC actions that
created the Multi Use Sanmateur Radio Service MERRS, which is
around one hundred and fifty one megahertz range, which is
again VHF between thirty and three hundred megaherds by reallocating
business VHF frequencies like one fifty four megahertz. Right here,
it notes that the proposed changes follow a similar model
(14:37):
in align with federal push towards simplifying regulatory structures and
enhancing public access to critical communications next steps, the NCC
is urging the FCC to assign a rulemaking number and
open a proposal for broader comment If approved, the changes
could mark one of the most significant reallocations of personal
radio spectrum in decades. Would be in fair I would
(15:01):
totally be in favor of this. I have a GMRS license.
My call sign is WRFK three to eleven. And if
they propose something like this and they start releasing, they
start releasing radios that are FCC type compliant for GMRS,
which there's a lot of guys using Motorola and Harris
radios which are Part ninety and not Part ninety five
(15:21):
on GMRS today. I mean, nobody really cares, and that's
that's fine, But there's a lot of low band radios
out there on the market right now, on used low
band radios that you can get for really cheap because
nobody's using those frequencies right now. So if they reallocate this,
there's gonna be a lot of used equipment that you
could use on this and I will absolutely be investing
(15:42):
in something like that and getting out on the air
and trying out this new these new frequencies on these
new bands. Just remember that the lower the frequency, this
is something else you learn your Hamm radio test. Okay,
the lower the frequency, the taller your antenna. So on
your really really low frequencies on HF and MF and LF,
(16:03):
you're going to need a much taller, much longer antenna
than you do on VHF and UHF. You can get
away with a really short, stubby intenna on UHF on
top of your vehicle because the frequency is around four
hundred and sixteen two megahertz, But in order to use
low band properly now, you can get compromised and coiled antennas,
and you can get shorter antennas and more compact antennas
(16:25):
stuff that will work but not work quite as well.
But in order to be as efficient as you want
to and actually be able to reach out and communicate,
you're gonna have to have a much taller antenna, similar
to the old CB whips, the one hundred and two
inch whips something like that. Not quite that tall because
CB's on a lower frequency than what the proposal is
here for these low band ones, so not quite as
(16:47):
tall as a CB intenna, but much much taller than
your standard UHF GMRS intenna that you're used to having
on your car now, So just keep that in mind.
There's a compromise for everything, and you can use a
compromised antenna for these low band but you're not gonna
be it's not gonna be as efficient, or you're just
gonna have to deal with putting a taller antenna on
your car, which doesn't bother me at all. You should
(17:07):
see my truck that I have. Now. Let me know
what you guys think about this new proposal in the
comment section below. Love to hear your thoughts. Check out
the links in the description below. Seventy three We'll catch
you next time.
A GMRS licensee and user has petitioned the FCC to
give a low band VHF frequency a new set of
frequencies to GMRS and FRS users. This is kind of
a neat story and I think I'm in favor of it.
Let's take a look. This article comes from nottcom Magazine,
(00:22):
not com mag National Communications magazine. This is a subscription
that I have and I read interesting stories from it.
I think the subscription is like five bucks a month.
So if you like stories like this, I recommend subscribing
to nottcom mag Like I do. I don't read all
of the stories on purpose because I don't want to
give away all of their behind the paywall info GMRS
(00:45):
and FRS. FCC has been petitioned for low VHF low
band channels. Now what is low band? If you don't
know what lowband is, I've done some low band before.
It's it's kind of fun. So VHF goes from thirty
mega hurts to three hundred megahertz. UHF goes from three
hundred megahertz to three thousand megahertz. I don't know who
(01:07):
came up with these plans way back in the day,
but that's just kind of what it is. So VHF
very high frequency is from thirty megahertz to three hundred megherds,
so anything above thirty is considered and lower than three
hundred is considered VHF obviously, So generally speaking, when you
hear the term low band, you're talking about somewhere between
like thirty and fifty or thirty and sixty megahertz, somewhere
(01:30):
below the six meter band. The six meter band in
ham radio is between fifty and fifty four megahertz, and
it's considered the magic band. A lot of the times
that band will open up and you'll be able to
talk across the world with five watts of power, and
it's really fun, but it's not open all the time.
There are police and fire departments in the past that
have used low band somewhere around the forty six to
(01:50):
forty eight megahertz frequency range, And you can buy radios
on eBay or the used marketplace right now, and you
can find low band radios that'll do fifty to one
hundred watts something like that. Ken Wood makes one, but
a lot of those frequencies have been kind of forgotten
about for lack of a better term because a lot
of companies have moved to higher band VHF or into
(02:14):
the UHF or into the microwave frequencies. Now GMRS right
now today, GMRS and FS, which share channels around the
four hundred and sixty two megahurtz range four innit and
sixty two is obviously higher than three hundred. They're in
the UHF megahertz range. UHF band, and the UHF band
is great for closer communications or for communicating in a
building and talking through walls, through concrete or steel walls
(02:38):
or something like that. But VHF low band or VHF
in general is, and i'm talking in generalizations here, is
generally going to be better for longer range communications. It's
also going to require a longer antenna on your vehicle
or your home if you're going to set up a
low band radio to talk across a wider area. So
(02:58):
the summary of this article here is a longtime GMRS
license has submitted to the FCC a proposal to reallocate
underused VHF low band radio frequencies for gmrs and fs.
The petition argues that these channels offer superior propagation characteristics
compared to the current UHF frequencies used by FURS and GMRS. Again,
(03:20):
current FSGMRS frequencies around the four sixty two to four
hundred and sixty seven megahertz range, so the petition submitted
to the FCC proposes sweeping changes to the reallocate under
used VHF low band radio frequencies for GMRS. Shows a
copy of the document there. The National Capital Communications LLC,
(03:40):
also known as the mid Atlantic REACT in Washington, DC area,
has formally requested that the FCC reallocate a series of
outdated or abandon frequencies in the thirty to fifty megahertz
band to enhance GMRS and FS capabilities. Follow along as
we detail frequencies proposed in the petition and some background
while these channels might prove workable for expanded GMRS capabilities.
(04:04):
The petition was submitted by Michael Trehos KAB seven oh
four six that's a GMRS goal sign KAB seven oh
four six, a longtime GMRS licensee who is also a physician.
He's also a general class HAMD with the call of
KB four PGC and as other VFCCC licenses too. Filed
in response to a recent rulemaking efforts and aligned with
(04:27):
President Trump's executive orders and promoting deregulation and efficient government operations.
The petition highlights the growing need for longer range, publicly
accessible communication tools in the face of increasingly severe natural disasters. So,
like I said, longer range. So FRS and GMRS and
GFRS radios are limited to I think two watts. I
(04:49):
think it is GMRS radios are limited to fifty watts.
And GMRS can use outside external antennas. You can take
the antenna off of the radio, unscrewed it from the
top the radio on a GMRS antenna and connect an
external antenna on your vehicle, or set an antenna up
high up on your house, or run a coax to it.
A true FRS radio does not have a removable antenna.
(05:11):
That's one of the things that GMRS gives you. GMRS
also gives you up to fifty WTTs of power, so
you can have a mobile radio with fifty wats of
power or a base station radio with fifty wats of power.
And you can use a repeater in GMRS. And what
a repeater is if you don't know, I've got several
videos in this channel talking about repeaters and what they are,
and describes them. But it's basically a radio on top
of a building or a top of a tower, typically
(05:32):
one hundred and fifty one hundred and fifty plus feet,
could be four hundred feet, could be one thousand feet,
could be two thousand feet. A repeater up on a
high tower or building that captures the signal from your
little handheld in your backyard or in your home or
your vehicle and retransmits it in a wider area. Because
(05:53):
on VHF and UHF height is might, so the higher
up you get an antenna, and the higher up you
are in elevation if you're going to hike up a
mountain or something, the better you can get a signal
a VHF UF signal. So when you have a UHF
repeater in a high location, it can capture signals from
a low location and retransmit them across a very much
(06:15):
wider area than what your small handheld radio has or
your fifty white mobile radio has. So these frequencies are
excellent to use on repeaters and to use in close
range communications, which often a lot of people use them
in camping situations, overlanding car pools, caravans driving down the highway,
and that's great. But VHF low band is capable of
(06:39):
reaching much further distances. You can talk across a metroplex
or maybe across a state, depending on band conditions and
atmospheric conditions, you can reach out and touch a little
bit farther than you are used to with the current
GMRS frequencies. Now, I think the question is now, I
want to say, first up, I'm all in favor for this.
(07:02):
I'm one hundred percent in favor for this. We haven't
read the whole article yet. I'm gonna skim through the
article and I will put a link in the description
blow you guys can go check out the whole article yourself.
But think of it like this. It's going to determine.
It's going to depend on how many how much power
they're going to allow you to use. So fifty watts
of power is usable by GMRS users, while only two
(07:24):
wats of power is usable by FS and the difference
is basically, you just sign up. You pay thirty five
dollars for a ten year license to give GMRIS call
sign to use on GMRS frequencies, and then you open
up this whole world of multiple power and different types
of radios that you can't use with FOS, and low
band will work great for longer distances like this article
(07:46):
is telling us, and that is great. Thirty to fifty megahertz,
that's great. We're going to see what the actual We're
going to see what the actual frequencies are here in
a second. But think about CB radio, which is around
the twenty seven twenty six to twenty seven megahertz band,
and the limitations of CEBE radio because it is a
free band like fs's freeban. Frs's two watts on freeband.
(08:07):
CEBE radio is four watts on freeband. You can do
twelve wats on sideband, four wats on AM. So it's
a low power band because it is freeband. So if
you add GMRS to a low band VHF system and
allow it a higher power, then you're going to really
be able to reach out a lot further. This goes
on to say that a call sparked by crisis. The
FCC filing points to Hurricane Helene, which devastated parts of
(08:31):
Florida and the Carolinas in twenty twenty four, as a
stark example of modern communication infrastructure's vulnerability. When cell towers
went offline and amateur radio repeaters were knocked out, thousands
of citizens were left without any way to call for help. Now,
I spoke about this and I interviewed some of the
people will post Hurricane Heleen on this channel, and we
were talking about repeaters in the area, some that were
(08:52):
knocked offline and some that were not. But there was
a very good repeater network system that was usable in
that area by Ham's and they were taken traffic from
non hands also in post emergency situations. So it would
be nice to have an alternative to Ham radio and
low band frequencies, something that would reach out a little
bit further in post crisis situations. I agree with this article,
(09:16):
but also remember that if you had a Ham radio license,
you would already have access to this type of technology. Now,
if you're interested in getting your Ham radio license, I
recommend Ham Radio Prep go check out hamradioprep dot com.
They sell packages of license courses, the Technician, General, and
Extra all three courses. They sell MCom courses. Talk a
(09:37):
lot about MCom in this article. Here. They sell packages
of Balfang Basics courses and HF courses and the technician
courses altogether, you can save a twenty percent discount on
all of their courses with the coupon code of Jason twenty. So,
if you're interested in getting more involved into radio and
having even more if they pass this, if the FCC
approves this, and they pass lowband for GMRS, then you'll
(10:00):
have a UHF band and a low ban VCHIF band,
So you have two bands you can talk on GMRS.
And that's great, and like I said, I'm in favor
of that. But Ham Radio already has like thirty bands.
We have like thirty bands we can talk on with
a technician license fifty megahertz and up. So you've already
got this low band thing covered in a different frequency range,
but it's still a low band and all the way
(10:21):
up through your VHF, UHF and microwave frequencies. Lots of
great stuff in him radio. Check out the link in
the description below what frequencies are targeted, because that's kind
of what I was asking when I first read this article.
The proposal calls for the reallocation of three main sets
of frequencies old cordless telephone channels forty six and forty
nine megaherts Okay, once popular in the nineteen eighties, analog
(10:41):
cordless phones operating in the forty three to forty nine
are hertz range have all but disappeared. Nobody has a
land these are landline phones. Cordless landline phones is what
they're talking about. According to the NCC's analysis, ten channel
pairs channels sixteen through twenty five have no active FCC
license and could be repurposed for GMRS repeater operations supporting
both simplex and duplex communications up to one hundred watts
(11:04):
low power baby monitor and Waki Talkie channels forty nine
Dot eighty three to forty nine Dot eight nine megahertz.
This is right below the six meter band framature radio
once used for remote control cars, Waki talkies, and household
baby monitors. I had a Waki Talkie on forty nine
megaherts when I was a kid. There was nobody else
on it. I always was trying to make some kind
(11:25):
of contact on that, but I never got anyone contacted
on that. These low power channels are now largely obsolete.
NCC proposes allocating these five channels for unlicensed to watt
frsus Okay good idea enabling personal and emergency communications without
the need for specialized licenses. Okay, abandoned VHF paging frequencies
thirty five and forty three megahertz. These channels previously were
(11:48):
used by commercial paging services and are no longer in use.
NCC recommends reallocating seven of these frequencies to gmrs, with
the potential for a three hundred watt repeater operations in
an eight megahertz separation for enhanced range. I don't know
about three hundred watts. That might be kind of overkill
for a low band something like that. Depends on what
(12:09):
you're trying to do. You know. They kind of squashed
the whole repeater linking thing in the world of GMRS,
and I don't really understand why that is. There's some
videos out there and I've watched a little bit of it,
and i know what the claim is, and I've got
some additional ideas on top of that, but it doesn't
sound like they really want gmrs to be that far reaching.
(12:29):
But things change over time and that's all well and good,
and the reallocation of these unused frequencies I think is
a very good thing. The petition argues that these VHF
low band channels offer propagation characteristics that far outsee the
range of today's uhf fs and GMRS radios. That is true.
That is a true statement right there. Okay, that is
(12:51):
a true statement. However, CB radio also offers that because
it's just like I said, twenty six to twenty seven megahertz,
and it's right below the frequency range we're talking about here.
The bootstrap, the bottleneck that is that prevents CBE radio
from being legally allowed to do farther range is that
(13:13):
they limit the radios to four wats on AM and
twelve watts on sideband. So if they get these proposed
power limits up to one hundred wats for that first
set and up to three hundred wats for that lower set.
If they get those proposed power limits passed, I think
that will be a larger step in making these more
(13:34):
useful because we could put these frequencies in use today,
and on only five or ten watts of power, you're
not gonna get much further than your stock CB radio is.
But if you were to add one hundred wats or
three hundred watch to a CBE radio, you'd be able
to accomplish the almost the exact same goal, especially now
that CB radio allows FM use as well as AM
(13:54):
and sideband use. Unlike higher frequencies which often require more
line of sight to repeaters, signal in the thirty to
fifty megaharts range can travel over hills, through buildings, and
even bounce off the atmosphere, which is ideal for emergencies
when infrastructure is down. Absolutely correct statement. This is the
type of thing that you learn in your Hamm radio
test when you go take your first technician test. Precedent
(14:15):
and policy alignment, The petition cites earlier FCC actions that
created the Multi Use Sanmateur Radio Service MERRS, which is
around one hundred and fifty one megahertz range, which is
again VHF between thirty and three hundred megaherds by reallocating
business VHF frequencies like one fifty four megahertz. Right here,
it notes that the proposed changes follow a similar model
(14:37):
in align with federal push towards simplifying regulatory structures and
enhancing public access to critical communications next steps, the NCC
is urging the FCC to assign a rulemaking number and
open a proposal for broader comment If approved, the changes
could mark one of the most significant reallocations of personal
radio spectrum in decades. Would be in fair I would
(15:01):
totally be in favor of this. I have a GMRS license.
My call sign is WRFK three to eleven. And if
they propose something like this and they start releasing, they
start releasing radios that are FCC type compliant for GMRS,
which there's a lot of guys using Motorola and Harris
radios which are Part ninety and not Part ninety five
(15:21):
on GMRS today. I mean, nobody really cares, and that's
that's fine, But there's a lot of low band radios
out there on the market right now, on used low
band radios that you can get for really cheap because
nobody's using those frequencies right now. So if they reallocate this,
there's gonna be a lot of used equipment that you
could use on this and I will absolutely be investing
(15:42):
in something like that and getting out on the air
and trying out this new these new frequencies on these
new bands. Just remember that the lower the frequency, this
is something else you learn your Hamm radio test. Okay,
the lower the frequency, the taller your antenna. So on
your really really low frequencies on HF and MF and LF,
(16:03):
you're going to need a much taller, much longer antenna
than you do on VHF and UHF. You can get
away with a really short, stubby intenna on UHF on
top of your vehicle because the frequency is around four
hundred and sixteen two megahertz, But in order to use
low band properly now, you can get compromised and coiled antennas,
and you can get shorter antennas and more compact antennas
(16:25):
stuff that will work but not work quite as well.
But in order to be as efficient as you want
to and actually be able to reach out and communicate,
you're gonna have to have a much taller antenna, similar
to the old CB whips, the one hundred and two
inch whips something like that. Not quite that tall because
CB's on a lower frequency than what the proposal is
here for these low band ones, so not quite as
(16:47):
tall as a CB intenna, but much much taller than
your standard UHF GMRS intenna that you're used to having
on your car now, So just keep that in mind.
There's a compromise for everything, and you can use a
compromised antenna for these low band but you're not gonna
be it's not gonna be as efficient, or you're just
gonna have to deal with putting a taller antenna on
your car, which doesn't bother me at all. You should
(17:07):
see my truck that I have. Now. Let me know
what you guys think about this new proposal in the
comment section below. Love to hear your thoughts. Check out
the links in the description below. Seventy three We'll catch
you next time.
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