E1640: FCC Cracks Down on China-Owned Bad Labs New FCC Rules Explained

FCC Cracks Down on China-Owned "Bad Labs" | New FCC Rules Explained Discover the FCC's bold move to enforce new regulations targeting test labs controlled by foreign adversaries, starting with China. Learn about the recent actions to withdraw recognition from these labs, why it matters, and what it means for tech and security. Stay informed with our breakdown of the FCC's latest news release! #FCC #ChinaLabs #techregulations

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Source Article - https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-takes-action-bad-labs-apparently-controlled-china

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The FCC takes action against several labs in the USA
that are apparently controlled by China, calling them bad labs
for the purposes of testing Chinese radio equipment. Check this out.
This was sent to me by one of you. Got
an email from you with a link to this Brandan Carr,

(00:22):
FCC Chairman of the FCC. He put this on X
or what I call I still call Twitter. The FCC
has identified seven test labs that are apparently owned or
controlled by China. Up to now, these labs have been
authorized review electronics headed for the US, including national security checks.
We're now taking action to kick bad labs out of

(00:45):
the US system. So, in other words, I wonder, and
I've found a link to this. He shared a picture
on Twitter. He didn't share a link to the actual article.
So I went onto the FCC website and I found
a link to this article. I'm going to read this
to you guys, but I wonder how many of these
labs were in charge of spurious emissions tests on some
of the Part ninety or Part ninety five radios that

(01:08):
we've been getting into the USA from China. I get
the question and comment several times on videos when I
post videos about Bowfang's or Reddivist radios or any tone
radios or anything else out of China, people will say
something like, I thought these weren't allowed in the USA anymore.
How can they sell these radios as completely unlocked? They're
not part ninety or you know, are these legal to sell?

(01:30):
Is this? This? This? And I'm like, well, you know
what I mean, I don't really know the answer to that,
other than to say, you know, eBay and Amazon you
can buy kind of anything you want to, and I don't.
I don't know how they get around regulations. But more
than that, I don't know exactly what the regulations are.
So I know for a fact that the FCC came

(01:51):
down on Balfang a while back and said that you
can't sell a fully unlocked UV five R anymore, which
most of the time, if you buy a UV five
are on Amazon, it's locked, but it's just simple, like
a two key process to unlock it. So it's kind
of pointless in my opinion that they even care about
that because they're selling a very easily easy to unlock radio.
And I'm not saying they should or should not be

(02:13):
able to be unlocked. I'm just saying this is the
facts are that locking the radio does very little to
prevent people from transmitting outside of the amateur radio bands,
and those UV five R radios are not Part ninety accepted.
Baufaning does have some Part ninety type accepted radios Part
ninety certified radios. Part ninety means they're commercial and it
means they've gone through a little bit extra test and

(02:33):
they have they're supposed to have less spurious emissions than
something that is not Part ninety's. It means they're full
open transmit from about one thirty four to one seventy
four or one thirty six to one seventy four megahertz
and four hundred to maybe four eighty or even up
to five hundred and twenty mega hurts something like that.
But sometimes Part ninety radios are good and sometimes they're

(02:57):
not good. So it just it kind of depends. But
I under if there was anything in these tests that
there are these labs rather that signified you know, that
kind of let things slip through the cracks that they
shouldn't have. Why would any Chinese lab be used? Some
of the comments here, you know, it's Twitter is a

(03:17):
dumpster fire of comments and always has been. It might
be a little bit better today than it used to be.
Here is the FCC actual document pdf file that I've found.
Now went back here and I found the bad Labs
apparently controlled by China article on the FCC dot gov website.
It's right here, and you can get the press release
in document or PDF or text file. So I pulled

(03:39):
up the pdf file and I'm gonna read that to
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(04:22):
All right, let's zoom in on this right here. News
from the FCC. Federal Communications Commissioned FCC takes action on
bad labs quote apparently controlled by China. FCC takes first
step to enforce recent bad labs rules, beginning proceeding to
withdraw recognition from foreign adversary owned labs. This article is

(04:44):
written earlier this month. At the time of this recording
comes from Washington on September eighth of twenty twenty five. Today,
the FCC took an initial set of actions to address
the threats posed by quote bad labs they call it.
These are labs that review and approve electronics for use
in the US, but are ultimately owned or controlled by
a foreign adversary nation. Adversary nation. A lot of you

(05:06):
come along this channel and you're like CCR Chinese Communist Republic.
You know, why would you ever buy anything? And again,
USA manufacturing needs to step up their game. We need
to get some sort of manufacturing inside the USA because
there are no handheld radios for any service HAM Radio,
Commercial Radio GMRS CB, nothing None of that stuff is
made in the USA. Most all of it is made

(05:28):
in China. Heck man, if it was made in Mexico
or South America somewhere, or in Italy, I'd be okay
with that. But most of it is made in China.
Some of it's made in Japan. Some of it's made
in Japan. There's a lot of ham radios that are
made in Japan. Obviously handheld ham radios for our service
that are made in Japan. But there's hardly anything that's

(05:51):
made in Japan for gmrs or stuff like that. So
a cbe radio that kind of thing. So we need
to I would like to see a comment in the
video below, because every time I talk about products that
are made in USA, all Acraft, Flex Radio, some other stuff,
Buddy Pool, I get comments about how expensive those items are.

(06:13):
So put a comment in this video below and tell
me one of two things. Do you prefer cheap products
cheaper price or better quality made in the USA products,
because you can't have both. If someone like Flex Radio
were to come along and say we're gonna start making
a duel man HT just as good as their HF radios,
maybe just as good as a Motorola handheld radio. Okay,

(06:35):
ht's gonna be upwards of that. It's gonna be north
of one thousand dollars fifteen hundred eighteen hundred bucks something
like that. Would you be okay with that? Would you
want one? Do you think you'd buy one? I doubt
you'd buy four of them? You probably have four UV
five rs, right, I doubt you'd buy that many. But
would you buy one? Would you be okay with a
high price if it's made in USA? Or would you
rather have lower prices that are made in other countries?

(06:56):
Put a comment in the video below. Specifically, the FCC's
Office of Engineering and Technology issued notices today that begin
proceedings to withdraw recognition from an initial tranch of these
bad labs. The FCC adopted this process at its May
Commission meeting and now takes these actions immediately upon those
rules becoming effective. The agency has now begun proceedings to

(07:18):
withdraw recognition from seven test labs owned or controlled by
the Chinese government. The recognition of four other such labs
have expired. Since the adoption of our rules will not
be renewed. Okay. President Trump is leading the charge to
reshore America's industrial capacity and safeguard critical supply chains from

(07:38):
foreign adversary nations. Today's FCC action on bad Labs will
continue to do just that, said the FCC Chairman, Brandon Carr.
That's that's whose Twitter account we were looking out right here,
Brandon Carr. Foreign adversary governments should not own and control
the labs that test the devices the FCC certifies as
safe for the US market. This is an important step

(08:01):
in restoring trust in the commissions equipment authorization process and
combating foreign adversary threats. I commend OEt, the Enforcement Bureau,
and the Agency's Council on Natural Security for their work
on this action, and it goes on to talk about
some other government agencies down here. So I think this

(08:22):
is a good thing. I don't really think that foreign
labs foreign companies should control test labs in the United States.
I don't think foreign companies should control there's certain things. Instead,
a foreign person or an immigrant who is naturalized and
has become a citizen, of course, that's totally fine. But

(08:43):
a foreign company that's owned and operated overseas, I don't
really care what the country is. I don't really think
they should be controlling this type of test lab inside
of the United States. So what do you guys think.
Do you think that this is a good or a
bad action by the FCC. I personally think this this
type of thing is more what the FCC should be doing.
They should be not worried so much about what's happening

(09:06):
inside the borders, but worrying about stuff that's coming into
the country from outside of the United States borders and
regulating more of that. So it's not really regulating stuff
that US citizens are doing as much. It is as
regulating companies and individuals outside of the United States trying
to push products into the import industry of this country.

(09:26):
So I think this is kind of what they should
be doing a little bit more than looking at people
for bad transmitters on their GMRS towers or something like that.
So I'll put links to this in the description blow
So please comment on this video. And if you enjoyed
this video, YouTube thinks you want to watch these videos
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see you next time.